


Game, Set, Match.

by blackjacktheboss, chasexjackson



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Athlete percabeth is honestly my favourite thing on the planet, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Secret Relationship, Sex is present but not explicit, Soph and I challenged ourselves to fit as many tropes in as possible, Sorry for the poor tennis knowledge though, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2018-07-24 21:12:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 43,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7523317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackjacktheboss/pseuds/blackjacktheboss, https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasexjackson/pseuds/chasexjackson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“We should probably make some rules.”</i><br/><i>Percy has regained control over his expression, he looks back with a raised eyebrow and a contemplative expression. “Rules?”</i><br/><i>“So this doesn’t get messy.”</i><br/><i>“Okay. So, we should be honest with each other, right? No lying or whatever.”</i><br/><i>“Right. That includes if we start feeling things.”</i><br/><i>“Things?”</i><br/><i>“You know, like, emotions and shit.”</i><br/><i>“Such a way with words.”</i><br/><i>“Fuck off.”</i><br/> <br/>Or, that one where Percy and Annabeth are pro tennis players and decide to hook up. Annabeth wants rules, Percy gets too attached. What's new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Australian Open (January)

**Author's Note:**

> Sophii (blackjacktheboss) sent me a prompt for a Wimbledon AU two years ago and then another one last year when I hadn't yet followed through on my promise to write it. And this, friends, is the year that I decided to finally get my shit together. Inspired by both the game and the film, dedicated to my man Andy who I'm sure will be reading this.
> 
> Soph and I collabed to create this story and we are so pumped to share it at long last!
> 
> (Shoutout to my girl Jane for beta-ing)

"To be honest, I don't really want to be here."

To Annabeth, this seems fairly obvious. She just won a three hour long match against an opponent with the strongest backhand she'd ever met. She's exhausted. These tournaments are tiring enough without having to face the press after each and every game. But the journalist looks surprised by Annabeth's response. He laughs uneasily. "Really?"

From where she sits alone behind the long table, Annabeth rubs her face tiredly and appraises the group of journalists before her. With their tape recorders and notepads at the ready, eager to note down their next quote from her to write her up as an angry bitch in their reports. Well, Annabeth thinks, she may as well live up to the image. 

She lets out a pained sigh. "Really. I'd actually much prefer to be in my bed right now than answer another question about whether I'm ready for my next match."

There's another round of nervous chuckles which Annabeth does nothing to encourage or ease. 

"So, um..." The journalist consults his notepad. "Are you ready for your next match?"

Annabeth concentrates all of her efforts on not hurling her bottle of water at him. 

Fifteen excruciating minutes later, Annabeth steps down from the stage and comes face to face with a scowl which could rip the hairs out of her scalp. Piper McLean has a reputation for charming even the most stingy person on the planet into some sponsorship deal while leaving them thinking they’ve gotten the better deal, but few others than Annabeth get to see her less than charming side. She looks like she wants to throw Annabeth off a cliff.

She is also Annabeth’s Public Relations representative and one of her closest friends.

"You know,” Piper says in a tone far too light to match her expression, “if you hate me, I'd rather you just tell me instead of making my life a living hell."

Annabeth glances sideways at her as they walk together from the press hall, offering a wry smile. "Where would be the fun in that? You know I like to keep things interesting for you."

Piper tapped her chin with her clicky pen. "Ah yes. What would my life be without Annabeth Chase there to keep it interesting."

Ignoring her sarcastic tone, Annabeth shrugs. "Exactly."

Once they get away from the press hall, they are mostly left alone. Annabeth is Piper's only client who's made it through to the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, so she rides with her back to the hotel and makes sure her attention is wholly devoted to her needs. Annabeth likes Piper, might even love her as the close friend she has become after five years of being her PR rep, but she could really do without all the attention. 

She must fall asleep in the back of the car because the journey seems to take far less time than usual and Piper prods the side of her head with her pen at the end of it. Piper walks her through the hotel all the way up to her room, chirping instructions to her which Annabeth barely listens to. 

"And your dress for the benefit is hanging up in your room. I had to work my charm on the tailor to get it finished early."

Annabeth stops in the process of unlocking her door. "Come again?"

Piper looks up from her beloved clip board and blinks at Annabeth's blank expression. "The Sport For All benefit tonight? Raising money for kids to get involved in sport at a young age? It falls in line with the tennis tournament every year. Annabeth, I've told you about this. Several times."

Annabeth rubs her face. "You tell me a lot of things."

Piper looks like she's praying for strength. "Annabeth, please."

She can tell Piper is about to go into a long rant about how she never asks her to do anything and they have an agreement for three formal parties a year and Piper goes through so much as her rep and Annabeth  _ owes _ her. 

Annabeth saves them both the pain and holds her hands up in surrender. "Alright. I'll go."

Piper looks so happy that Annabeth almost gets excited at the prospect of going. And then she remembers how much she dislikes these parties and being subjected to the efforts of ego-driven male - and some female - tennis players. 

"But I’m leaving at eleven.”

“Twelve,” Piper counters.

Annabeth narrows her eyes. “Half eleven.”

She shuts the door before Piper can make a counter offer.

 

* * *

 

 

Annabeth hasn't always hated these events. Eight years ago, at the tender age of seventeen, when her career was really starting to take off, she had been excited to attend the glamorous parties with all the players she had looked up to for so long. They say never meet your heroes, and Annabeth couldn't agree more. There's nothing more disappointing than finding out that the Greats are just regular people, with awkward small talk and egos bigger than the room.

She has made friends though, over the years. People whose humour is close enough to hers for their arrogance not to bother her quite so much. After all, Annabeth is no humble Saint, it's rare that professional sportspeople are. A certain drive and belief in oneself is needed to succeed as she has. But this doesn't stop her disliking others with similar personality traits to her own.

One of those less antagonising people is her practice partner, Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano. They were matched together two years ago and have been practicing together ever since. Annabeth finds it easy to get on with Reyna, mostly because she is straight to the point about everything and she won’t hesitate to call people out on their bullshit. But they’ve never quite become friends, instead teetering in an odd zone which allows them to casually discuss American politics but not to know each other’s parent’s names.

“I swear, if my rep makes me go to one more of these functions I will strangle her,” Reyna says, swiping a glass of prosecco from a passing waiter.

Annabeth smiles, sipping her own drink. “I assume you’ve been persuaded into attending, too?”

Reyna gives her a withering look over her glass. They stand together near the edge of the room, observing the party from a distance. Outside of these settings, Annabeth knows they probably wouldn’t choose to spend time with one another, despite practicing together for almost three years. Their partnership is born of convenience and avoidance of unpleasant male tennis players and agents who think they are the shit but are, in fact, not. Regardless, Piper was Annabeth’s closest friend in this world.

_ Don’t make friends in tennis. It’ll only be your weakness. _

Reyna had been the one to tell her that.

So they pass the time by discussing their matches and exchanging disdainful comments about the other party-goers. Not even ten minutes later, their shared agent finds them. 

"Good evening, ladies."

Jason Grace is dressed in a clean black suit, looking as professional as ever even without a phone pressed to his ear. 

"Jason," Annabeth greets him warmly, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. "How are you?"

He gives her a placid smile before breaking eye contact to kiss Reyna's cheek. 

"I'm glad you're here," he says in a calculated tone. 

Reyna laughs darkly. "I take it you've pissed him off more than I have today?" she asks Annabeth. 

"Honestly, Piper overreacted."

Reyna's eyebrows are halfway up her forehead as she hides a smirk behind her glass. "Did she really?"

Annabeth rolls her eyes and turns to Jason. "I didn't throw anything at anybody this time, did I?"

Reyna tilts her glass at Jason. "Well that is an accomplishment."

Jason rolls his eyes. "You're lucky I have other things to deal with." He turns to Reyna whose face fills with dread. 

Annabeth pats her friend's arm and leaves them to it. She makes her way over to the bar, feeling like she needs something stronger than prosecco, though she knows she'll regret this in the morning. She orders a gin and tonic and sighs when the liquid hits her tongue. 

"Long day, huh?"

Annabeth looks over to see a guy her age standing at the bar wearing a navy suit and holding what looks like a Seven Seven in his hand. He's a little taller than her, with dark unkempt hair and a deep tan that looks native. His eyes dart over her frame briefly and Annabeth straightens, expecting an obnoxious smirk and a bad chat up line to follow. But he just smiles, and it's not completely innocent, but it doesn't make her want to smack him. He visibly swallows as well, and that makes her feel a little more comfortable. Intimidating people is Annabeth's forte, she can roll with this. 

Besides, she knows him. Or at least knows  _ of _ him. They've run the same circuit and played for the same country long enough for Annabeth to know who he is. 

"Percy Jackson," she says and doesn't ask, holding out her hand. 

His eyebrows pull up as though he's surprised she remembers who he is. He shakes her hand with a warm grip. "Annabeth Chase," he says.

"We've met before," she tells him, taking her hand back. 

"A few times," he agrees. "I feel like we haven't had a chance to talk."

"We haven't. Although last time we ran into each other I did see a great deal of you."

Blush runs up the sides of Percy's neck. "Right. I was hoping you would have forgotten that." He takes a swig of his drink. 

Annabeth holds back a grin. “Oh, a girl doesn’t forget something like that so easily.”

He raises his eyebrows at her, still blushing. “You’re a lot more suave now than you were then.”

Annabeth splutters.

He grins. “I mean, to be fair, if I’d walked into somebody else’s hotel room while they were showering I probably wouldn’t have been all that cool either.”

“You looked pretty deer-in-headlights yourself.”

“Justified, I think.”

She takes a sip of her drink, smirking at him. "I thought you would yell or something, but you just stepped out and stood there, dripping."

"Yes thanks," he says, running a hand over his face. "It's burned into my memory, I really don't need reminding."

She does anyway. "I've never seen anyone take so long to get a towel."

He looks up at her then. A lot of guys might sound defensive but Percy is almost laughing. "And what was it you said? 'Goodbye, and may I say, good body'?"

Annabeth shrugs, though she'd been mostly mortified at the time.

"I meant it," she tells him. 

He smiles into his drink, a blush spreading over his high cheekbones. "Thanks."

Annabeth watches him, feeling a long-forgotten pang in her lower belly. She’s been dedicated to her career for as long as she can remember, prioritising weekend lessons and extra sessions with coaches after school and meeting agents and training, training, training over everything else. Including relationships. And Percy is looking at her with a dangerous smile and his body is long and lean in that sharp suit and she’s laughing, feeling lighter than she has in a long time. 

 

* * *

 

 

“I stand by my earlier statement,” she tells him later, between panting breaths and the silk sheets of his hotel bed.

Percy turns his head on the pillow, frown pinching his eyebrows together. “Come again?”

She raises an eyebrow at his choice of words and he rolls his eyes.

Annabeth grins and looks up at the ceiling again. “‘Good body.’”

Percy chokes out a laugh. “Thank you?”

“You're welcome.”

She crawls off the bed, not bothering to take the sheet with her. Years of playing tennis has given her a body to be confident about. Instead, she uses her free hands to pour herself a glass of prosecco and pick up a strawberry from their deserted picnic. She pops it into her mouth as she admires the suite. 

“This place is fucking ridiculous,” she tells him frankly. 

Percy laughs, pushing up onto his elbows as he gazes openly at her, raising one eyebrow. 

“You're saying yours is smaller?”

She scoffs. “Mine is a fucking shoebox, but I can't really blame anyone else for that.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

She rolls her eyes at herself as she walks back to the bed, handing her glass off to him and picking up his discarded shirt to stick her arms through and wrap around her torso. Annabeth sits on the end of the mattress and faces Percy, who’s now sitting upright with the sheet pooled around his hips.

“I'm one of those really superstitious athletes,” she confesses. “I can't change shit up during a tournament, so when I was initially assigned that room by mistake, I couldn't get it changed.”

“I mean.” He takes a sip of the prosecco. “You could have.”

Annabeth nudges his leg with her toe. “Don’t act like you’re any different. I’ve seen your shuffle dance.”

He chokes a laugh. “My what, now?”

Annabeth smirks as she watches him fidget nervously. “Before you serve, every single time, you do that shuffle with your feet and twist your racquet.”

Percy blushes but he raises an eyebrow too. “You’ve been paying attention.”

She takes her glass back from him. “Research.”

“Sure.”

“I’m serious.”

Percy plucks the glass from her hand and leans over to place it on the bedside table. She watches the muscles of his back shift under his skin and blames the prosecco for how her gaze lingers. For how she reaches for him immediately as he turns back to her, and how she groans when he pulls her against him, into his lap.

His hands are on her skin, pulling the shirt off her body and kissing her again and again and again. Until she feels dizzy with the touch of his skin on hers, the heat building between them again. She opens her eyes and watches him beneath her, the pink of his cheeks and panting mouth and the brilliant blue-green of his eyes beneath dark lashes. 

Her mind flashes back to earlier in the evening, when they had stood to the side of the party gently mocking their colleagues and opponents. Hiding laughter behind champagne flutes and creating inside jokes which felt like they had been shared years before. And Percy had not looked at her with a predatory gaze, he hadn’t leaned down to whisper in her ear that they should get out of there, he hadn’t presumed or pushed or devoured. He had blushed when she leaned up to brush her lips against his ear, he had nodded with bright eyes and a  _ smile _ , he had placed a gentle hand on her back and followed.

Here and now, he follows her again. Watches her through lidded eyes as she shifts up and settles onto him. His hands go to her hips and he presses his face into her shoulder and groans, a long guttural thing which makes her feel powerful and wanted. He follows her as she moves above him, as she leans backwards and lands on silk sheets. As she wraps her legs around him and rocks her hips and tugs on his hair and leaves teeth marks on his shoulder. He follows. After she is spent and spent and spent, he follows after, swearing and slumping onto the mattress next to her.

Annabeth pats his chest lazily.

“Damn.”

He pants next to her. “Yeah.”

“You out of breath?” she teases, barely covering her own panting. “We need to work on your stamina.”

Percy chokes out a laugh. “Does that mean we’re gonna be doing this again?”

She stiffens, instinct. 

“Because I want to,” Percy follows quickly, either sensing her panic or pre-empting it. “I definitely want to.”

The breathlessness of his tone lets Annabeth feel a little more smug, lets her relax against the sheets, lift her foot and place it between his legs. They’re touching now, in two places. Percy’s hand has lifted to hold her arm where it still rests against his belly, where she’d allowed it to fall. It hits her that she isn’t usually this relaxed after hooking up with someone. She isn’t usually still lying in bed, touching in two places. She’s usually dressed and out the door, down the corridor, calling a cab so that she can sleep in her own bed and be up early for practice.

It strikes her that this doesn’t feel entirely like her previous hook ups.

“Alright,” she says, “but we should make a few things clear.”

“Okay?” Percy sounds unsure for the first time since they crossed the threshold of his hotel room.

She turns her head to look at him and he does the same, following.

“I’m not in a place to start a relationship. It’s too messy with training and tournaments and travelling.”

He takes a moment to respond and she can’t quite read his face as he does. “Right,” he says quietly. “The three Ts.”

“Right. But, I do want to see you again.”

Percy looks at the ceiling. “For sex.”

“Are you cool with that?”

Percy looks at her again, wide eyed, and for a moment she has no idea what he’s about to say.

“Totally. I’m totally cool with that.”

She lets out a breath and turns her gaze to the ceiling. Percy’s fingers close around her wrist gently, thumb stroking the bone. Annabeth withdraws it from his grasp and rolls onto her side, head propped on her hand to look at him. 

“We should probably make some rules.”

Percy has regained control over his expression, he looks back with a raised eyebrow and a contemplative expression. “Rules?”

“So this doesn’t get messy.”

“Okay. So, we should be honest with each other, right? No lying or whatever.”

“Right. That includes if we start feeling things.”

“ _ Things? _ ”

“You know, like, emotions and shit.”

“Such a way with words.”

“Fuck off. No sleepovers.”

Percy pulls a face at that. “You’d rather sneaking out of hotel rooms at two in the morning?”

She relents. “Okay, fair. No sharing a bed with clothes on.”

He contemplates. Shrugs, nods. “I’m cool with that.”

“Of course you are.” She shifts, getting more comfortable next to him. “We should keep this just at tournaments. No need to meet up in between.”

“Sure. We probably shouldn’t go to each other’s matches either.”

“Right. And no PDA obviously. We should just keep this between us, I don’t need the press bugging me about this.”

“Alright, so it’s just between us.”

“I might have to tell Piper.”

“Your PR rep?”

“She’s basically my best friend. And she’d find out anyway, that lady is a damn bloodhound when it comes to my sex life. She probably knows about this already somehow.”

“Okay if you’re telling Piper, I get to tell someone too.”

“That’s fair.”

He nods. Looks contemplative again. “So how are we gonna organise this? If we can’t go to each other’s games or see each other in public…”

“I’ll give you my number, you dork.”

“So we can text.”

“Yes, but only to arrange to meet up, right?”

“Mhm. And to exchange tennis tips.”

She rolls her eyes and shifts closer to him. “Of course.” She says the words against the skin of his jaw. “So you’re cool with this being low key, right?”

“Sure. Low key.” She feels his Adam’s apple bob under her tongue. “I can totally do low key. I’m all about low key.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Grover, why would I say that I’m low key? Have I ever been low key about a relationship in my life?”

His friend grimaces. “You know, Perce, I want to tell you yes.”

Percy groans, rubbing his face with his free hand. They’re walking to the practice courts so he has to remove his hand from his face after a moment so that he doesn’t walk into anyone. He scrubs it through his hair instead and is reminded sharply of the way Annabeth had tugged her fingers through it the night before.

“This is going to end badly,” Grover tells him.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I just want to be honest with you.”

“Appreciated. But seriously Grover, the fuck am I gonna do?”

Grover places a hand on his shoulder, stopping him on the path, and looks him straight in the eye. “Percy, you’re not gonna fall for this girl. You’re gonna separate lust and love. You’re gonna sleep with her and not get attached and there will be no terrible consequences from this.”

“You don’t believe a word of what you just said, do you?”

Grover lets go of him and punches his arm good naturedly. “Nope, but I said it with meaning, didn’t I?”

“Not really.”

Percy shoulders the wire mesh door open onto the practice courts and walks along the edge, avoiding stray balls, until they find an empty court. They both drop their bags and remove their racquets along with a tube of tennis balls. Percy pulls the lid off and lets them tumble onto the worn grass, heaving out a sigh.

Grover scuffs the back of Percy’s head as he passes. “C’mon, man. Head in the game.”

“Right.” Percy shakes his head and bends down to pocket some of the balls. Watching his friend jog into place on the other side of the court. “Right.”

He has a terrible habit of letting the relationships he’s in distract him from his game. He falls too hard and too fast and overthinks things and ends up falling on his ass in the dirt, sometimes very literally.

Percy takes a ball from his pocket and bounces it once, twice, three times. Lifting his eyes to Grover who is watching him from the backline on the other side of the court, body crouched slightly, ready for his serve. He feels instead of watches the bounce of the ball, tries to focus himself within this moment. Tosses the ball high and lets his serving arm follow, feels the impact of the racquet against the ball, watches as it flies towards the net and clap against it with a depressing smack.

Grover straightens, watching him with a frown and Percy bounces the mesh of his racquet against the heel of his hands a few times, delaying, avoiding Grover’s concerned gaze. He shakes himself off, annoyed that Annabeth has already burrowed her way under his skin, that he can’t focus himself. And then her voice is suddenly sharply in his mind.  _ Come on, Jackson. Get it the fuck together _ .

He tosses the ball, follows with his serve, and watches the ball fly over the net. Grover returns and Percy has to sprint to get to it but snaps it up with a flick of his wrist. The rally lasts longer than it should and Percy feels alive, feels adrenaline pump through his system and the asphalt scrape beneath his sneakers with each twist of his body, feels the muscles of his legs tense with each burst and sprint. He feels his heart race and his lungs strain for air and thinks of Annabeth’s hand on his chest,  _ We’re gonna have to work on your stamina _ .

He feels so very present.

“You know this is a practice, right?” Grover asks him when they break. He chugs down some water and gives Percy a wary look as he swallows. “Not the final of Wimbledon.”

Percy shrugs, still feeling exuberant. “You told me to get my head in the game.”

“Yeah, well. Tone it down a little, alright?”

“Struggling to keep up, old man?”

Grover rolls his eyes. “So you managed to get her out of your head then?”

“Actually, I think I stopped trying so hard to not think about her.”

“There’s too many negatives in that sentence for me to understand what you’re talking about.”

Percy chucks his friend’s shoulder. “I think Annabeth got it right. Casual is the way forward.”

Grover looks at him disbelievingly.

“I’m serious! Think about my last two relationships - I was a fucking mess afterwards. They ruined my game and I could never commit to anything because tennis always came first.”

Grover nods like he’s appraising Percy’s argument and counters with a pointed finger. “But neither of them were also athletes. Annabeth is. She gets it, right?”

“Exactly. We’re on the same page.”

“So you’re perfect for each other.”

Percy ignores the childish rush in his chest. “We’re not starting a relationship,” he says firmly, unsure of who he’s trying to convince now. “We’re casual. Neither of us can commit to anything serious with all the travelling and training and tournaments.”

“The three Ts,” Grover recites.

“Exactly.” He points a convincing finger at Grover who bats it away. “This is the only way it’s gonna work.”

Grover lets out a sigh and makes his way back over to the other side of the court. As he goes, he calls back over his shoulder to Percy.

“Might I remind you that I’ve been in a happy, stable relationship for five years and I can still play tennis.”

“Well you are a magical being and June is a fucking saint. Not all of us are as perfect as you, Grover.”

Grover blushes but still looks unconvinced. He keeps quiet though, as he prepares to serve and Percy wonders what he's holding back. Part of him understands Grover’s argument - agrees even - but he represses it. He doesn't want to think about he and Annabeth being more than what they have agreed to be, about taking her on a date and kissing her at the end of the night and calling her the next day and becoming something. 

It's just sex. And he's happy with that. 

He is.

 

* * *

 

 

Percy Jackson’s serve is a beautiful thing, but not quite as beautiful as his pre-serve shuffle. The Jackson Shuffle, she’s decided to name it. Two steps forward, two steps back, racquet twisted, held. Then the ball flies from his hand into the air and his body stretches up and arches over, pulling all of those lovely muscles tight underneath tanned skin and blue shorts and polo shirt. 

Annabeth is fully aware that she's breaking one of their rules, more specifically, one that Percy had proposed. She's still trying to figure out why he had. Had he thought she'd put him off his game? Had he wanted to avoid having to go to hers?

She closes her eyes to rid herself of these thoughts, safe in the knowledge that Percy won't see her from this spot. She's in the stands behind him, with the sun behind them both, under a platform in the stands. She lets the sounds of the court surround her; the tempo of the ball against strings of racquets and shorn grass, the gasps and cheers of the crowds, the harsh tannoy of the umpire.

These sounds ground her, make her feel comfortable and known. Here, Annabeth is home.

“You are such a creepy stalker.”

Annabeth opens her eyes as Piper sidles up next to her, resting her forearms on the rail.

“I'm not a stalker. Don't be a dick.”

“Then why are you hiding in the shadows watching the guy you hooked up with last night’s game?”

Annabeth isn't surprised that Piper knows, but she is mildly annoyed. 

Percy serves again, drawing her gaze back to the long line of his body and the flick of his wrist and the curve of his ass in those shorts. 

She turns her back to the court and leans back against the railing as the umpire announces the point to Percy’s opponent, Sitko. Percy is two sets up and has already broken Sitko’s serve in the third set, but Sitko is fighting with bared teeth for every point. Percy rises to the challenge, bouncing and grinning to the crowd with every point won. They adore him, clamouring for every serve and returning every one of his fist pumps and shouts directed towards them. 

“We made a rule,” Annabeth mutters, holding herself back from joining in with their cheers.

Piper raises a judgmental eyebrow. Annabeth scowls back. “A rule,” she repeats slowly. 

“Well, we made lots of rules. And I may be breaking one.”

“Oh for fucks sake, Annabeth.”

“Look. Before you lose your shit everywhere. Don't. This is fine. I've got this under control.”

Piper is quiet for a moment as she watches the game. Annabeth fights the urge to turn around and join her. She clenches her hands into fists. 

“He doesn't strike me as the fuck buddy type,” Piper says, eventually. 

“He's cool with it.”

“I'm sure.”

“Piper, for god’s sake. Chill. We're both adults.”

Piper lets out a sigh, letting her head fall forward. “I just hope you know what you're doing, Annabeth.”

Annabeth turns around now, in time to watch Percy sprint from the backline to return a drop shot and win the game. Five games to three. He’ll win this match, she knows he will. His opponent’s backhand is too weak and Percy plays to it every point he can. He's a rookie and his every move is readable ten steps before he makes it. Percy, young himself but far more experienced, reads the kid like a book. 

“I do. It’s fine. You’re overthinking this.”

Piper looks like she’s on the verge of saying something but she keeps her lips pressed into a line as she watches the match play out. 

“Just…” Piper visibly chooses her words with care. “Don’t break him, Annabeth.”

The words clamour through her like an echoing bell as Piper leaves and she watches Percy Ace his final serve to win the match. The crowd explodes into life and the players shake hands and Percy tosses a ball into the audience and he is exuberant. He’s so full of pure joy and in that moment, Annabeth feels like she could very much splinter him into pieces if she’s not careful.

She won’t.

(But she could.)


	2. French Open (May)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess my posting schedule is mapped around Murray winning tournaments. Go figure.
> 
> THANK YOU for waiting so patiently for me to get my shit together once more. This received such a wonderful, positive response with the first chapter and I'm so so grateful. I hope you continue to enjoy it and please leave your feedback in comments or badger me and Soph on our tumblrs - ananbeth and blackjacktheboss :3
> 
> Sophii is a gift and a joy to collaborate with and Jane is a devine goddess for always helping me make my writing readable.

* * *

 

The rational side of Percy’s brain tells him that he should really be taking in more of the views around him as he is driven along the river Seine, but the less rational side is more focused on the inactive screen of his cell phone.

It’s eight in the evening, which means the sunset is getting close to beautiful over the tiled rooftops of Paris, but Percy sent Annabeth a text forty six minutes ago and she hasn’t replied yet, so his attention is focused elsewhere. He had waited until he’d gotten through airport security before getting his phone out, which he felt had been an impressive feat of self control. But now that Annabeth is taking so long to reply, it feels like a pointless gesture.

Percy drops his phone in his lap and lets his gaze fall to the scenery outside the taxi window. He can appreciate cities like this for their aesthetically pleasing old style buildings and unnecessarily convoluted streets and cute restaurants on the river front, but he knows he could never belong here. He is long used to travelling by now, but he doesn’t think he will ever shake the homesickness when he stays in cities away from home.

Home. Manhattan. Hot dog vendors which will probably give you a bad stomach ache, steam vents billowing clouds of vapour from the sidewalk, too many people in too small of a space, crowded sky highs and red brick tower blocks. A run down youth centre with paint peeling from the walls and a broken air conditioning machine, sagging tennis nets set up in a gymnasium too small to hold a full court. His mom making blue pancakes and smiling at him in a summer dress and her hair tied up with a pen. His chest aches, missing, missing.

A single tone from the phone in his lap draws him out of his self pity and he stares at the  screen, confused, for a moment before registering Annabeth’s name. His heart beats back into life and he swipes his thumb across the screen to read her replying text.

**I’m glad you survived your flight, Jackson. Kudos for travelling economy. You’re a regular working day hero.**

He can’t help but laugh at her response and hears her quipping tone in his ear as he reads it. He hurries to reply, thumbs fumbling over the wrong letters, and swearing his eternal gratitude to autocorrect.

**I am the true martyr of this era. I’m nearly at the hotel, need to see your face.**

**...and the rest of you.**

He sends the two texts before he can back out of it, grinning to himself as he pictures her reaction. Rolling her eyes or raising an eyebrow or smacking his arm. He’d be alright with any and all of it, as long as she kissed him afterwards. His phone vibrates.

**Ass.**

**I’m stuck in a strategy meeting with my coach. Tomorrow is probably a better shout x**

And all at once, he feels deflated. He’d looked so forward to seeing her tonight. Powering through the last two months with the knowledge that he would see her today, tonight. Her skin under his hands, her laugh pressed to his mouth, her voice in his ear. He’d been a mess for the whole flight, bouncing his knee and playing with the window shutter until his neighbour had told him off. And now he can’t see her until tomorrow?

He supposes he’s being irrational.

Annabeth hadn’t been able to compete in the Madrid Open at the beginning of the month, having injured her shoulder during training, so their last physical contact had been in March for the Miami Open.

**That okay?**

Percy stares at the three text messages and scolds himself. It’s one more day, and it’s not as if they’re _dating_. They’re not. And he doesn’t miss her. He just wants to get laid.

That’s all he wants.

**Sure thing. I got interviews in the AM but can do afternoon x**

**Great. I’ll text you x**

One more day. He can last that long.

Of course he can, besides, he has things to do. With that in mind, he sends a few messages, one to his own coach to arrange a strategy meeting before his first match on Tuesday, and to his agent to let her know he’s arriving in one piece. The next two days are sure to consist of press conferences and interviews. Something Percy actually enjoys, but finds draining. For once, he’s finding himself more eager to meet with his coach and start strategising. He supposes that’s Annabeth rubbing off on him; she’s constantly talking about how important the pre-planning stage is.

Percy has always just loved playing. He loves the game, and he loves having fun when he’s playing it. He doesn’t want to take himself seriously. But maybe a little strategy won’t hurt.

* * *

 

Annabeth loves strategising, almost as much as she loves playing the game, but she is finding it increasingly difficult to focus on what her coach is telling her about her opponents cross-court forehand.

“Annabeth? Is your shoulder hurting?”

She looks up at the frown lines around Chiron’s eyes and catches herself. She’d been rubbing her fingers into the spot behind her collarbone on her right shoulder, barely aware of herself. She lowers her hand and rolls her shoulder. It’s fine now, the gesture had been one of habit, not to ease pain.

“I’m fine. Go on.”

He folds his arms. “You seem distracted.”

She stares him down. “I’m fine,” she repeats more slowly. “Go on.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Chiron. Don’t.”

He finally lifts his hands in surrender. “Alright. I just can’t have you this distracted on Tuesday.”

“I won’t be,” she assures him, and when he doesn’t look convinced, she laughs in exasperation. “Trust me, it’s gonna take a lot more to distract me than...”

“Than what?”

She smiles. “Nothing. Continue, please.”

He waves a hand at her. “No, you’re useless to me like this.” But he says it with fondness. “I’ll find you tomorrow.”

She imagines herself protesting for a few seconds before she ultimately decides to give in and bolt from the room like a student freed from detention. As soon as she’s out of the room, she pulls her phone from her pocket to text Percy, barely feeling ashamed of herself.

**What’s your room no.?**

She’s on the second floor, where she and Chiron had met in his hotel room for their meeting. Her own suite - not a shoe box this time - is on the fourth. She lingers next to the elevators, waiting for Percy to reply, listening to the faint bass pounding from room 202 and the ding of the elevator as it reaches her floor.

Her phone buzzes.

**412**

**Change of plans?**

She doesn’t reply, just pockets her phone with a grin and hops into the elevator before the doors close, jabbing the button for the fourth floor.

Excitement fills her bones, sending jitters all over her body and she feels like a teenager. She feels like she hasn’t been touched for an age. It’s been two and a half months at most, but it feels far longer. She hasn’t so much as looked at anyone else in that time, hasn’t even had time to. A thought comes to her then - has he?

Her mouth feels sour with the thought of it. Of Percy looking at someone else, touching someone else, tracing the lines of their body with his tongue. She feels a bit sick.

The elevator dings and the doors open to the fourth floor.

She steps out and doesn’t move any further.

She checks her phone to make sure she has the right room number. 412. Percy hasn’t texted again.

Annabeth presses herself to the wall and knocks her head back against it.

“Stop being stupid,” she scolds herself.

She’s just a possessive person, always has been. It’s part of her competitiveness, she always wants things to herself. That’s why she likes winning so much. That’s why she can only be in a commitment free relationship right now. That’s why she’s going to stop overthinking things and go to Percy’s room and get what she wants.

He answers the door in less than five seconds and looks better than she had remembered. His hair is a mess, t-shirt rumpled, jeans undone. She raises an eyebrow.

“I was about to have a shower,” he says by way of explanation.

She doesn’t miss a beat. “Can I join you?”

She watches the breath leave his lungs before he steps aside to let her in. He barely has a chance to close the door before Annabeth is grabbing at him, pulling him close by the open waistband of his jeans and pressing her mouth against his. Percy grunts as his back hits the door, but he doesn’t seem displeased as he groans into her mouth and slides his hands into her hair.

“Hi,” he manages against her insistent mouth. “Missed you.”

“Stop talking.”

She pushes her hands under his shirt and tugs it up. He helps her take it off and then he’s shirtless in front of her again after months and she really has missed this. Missed them, him.

Annabeth pulls him back to her by his hair, this time his hands slide down to her ass and she can’t catch the groan before it’s past her lips. He grins against her, pleased.

“Shut up,” she mumbles, “Get on with it.”

“Pushy, pushy,” he says as he spins her around and drops to his knees.

A bubble of laughter escapes her as she looks down at him, all smiles as he unbuttons her jeans. She pushes his hair back affectionately as he starts to tug her jeans past her hips.

“I’ll fall over if you do that here,” she comments lightly.

He pauses, looks up at her. “Oh? I make your knees that weak, huh?”

“Fuck off.”

Percy kisses her hipbone where it juts above the line of her pants. “Don’t worry, I know you’re super strong.”

He’s teasing her and she knows she shouldn’t rise, but she can’t help it. “Fuck yes I am. I could lift you.”

He pulls his warm mouth away from her skin and she tries not to frown at the lost contact. She’s the cause of it, after all. Percy narrows his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

Annabeth narrows her eyes back at him. “Stand up.”

His eyebrows hit his hairline but he does as she says. Then he’s standing in front of her again, six foot of toned muscle and bones and she hopes she hasn’t overestimated herself. No, who is she kidding? She’s done weights harder than this.

She widens her stance, squats, and scoops her arms around his legs, just below his butt.

“Interesting,” Percy comments.

She lifts him, straightening her legs while keeping her torso upright. Percy catches himself against her shoulders. It’s at this point Annabeth remembers he is shirtless and both of their pants are undone. His skin is warm against the part of her chest exposed by her tank top and she’s weirdly turned on by the whole thing.

“What now?” she asks, because she isn’t sure.

He manages to shrug, staring down at her with an awed expression. “Bed?”

Annabeth laughs and begins shuffling vaguely towards the bed. She hopes. She can’t actually see a thing beside Percy’s chest but he (badly) directs her by looking over his shoulder. When they eventually make it to their destination, she hurls them both onto the mattress, landing on top of him. Annabeth slowly climbs over him on her hands and knees until their faces are aligned.

“Is it weird that I’m really turned on right now?” he asks her.

She grins before kissing him, feeling better than she has in months.

* * *

 

One week later, Annabeth’s Saturday evening before her first full day off of the tournament is interrupted by a wild knocking at the door. She drops her book and bounds off the bed to answer it, knowing who’s on the other side before she sees him.

“Hey,” she greets him.

Percy looks her up and down, but not in the way she's used to. This time it's...critical. She pushes away the urge to cover the Ravenclaw crest on her pyjamas and snatch her reading glasses off.

“How quick can you get dressed?” he asks as he shoulders his way into her room. He's getting far too comfortable with this arrangement.

Annabeth closes the door behind him and pushes her glasses into her hair. “Am I not appealing enough like this?”

Percy turns to face her with a frown. He'd been flicking through the magazines the cleaning maids had spread out on the coffee table.

“What?”

She raises an eyebrow and stares him down. It must slowly click into place for him then because he takes a few long strides to reach her and holds her still by her shoulders before kissing her deeply.

“You're always appealing to me, Annabeth Chase. Especially in Harry Potter pyjamas. But we're gonna have to discuss your choice of House later.”

She bats him off, shaking away the flutter in her chest he'd left behind with that kiss. “What's wrong with Ravenclaw?”

He looks amused. “Nothing, you're just clearly a Slytherin.”

She opens her mouth and then closes it again. Then repeats this a few times before huffing and crossing her arms over her chest.

Percy grins. “Slytherin is an awesome house. And you should get dressed.” He gently places his hands on her cheeks, waits to see if she'll push him off, and when she doesn't he stoops to press the softest kiss to her mouth. Then her forehead.

She's so swept up in the gesture that when he withdraws, she nearly topples forward.

Percy busies himself with flipping through the trashy magazines, sprawled out on the couch, as she pulls herself back together. She moves to her wardrobe and shucks out of her pyjamas to pull underwear on.

“What am I getting dressed for anyway?” she asks as she hooks her bra.

“Well we might get some funny looks if you go outside in your jammies. Parisians are pretty well dressed.”

“Har har. I mean where are we going?” They don't usually venture outside of their respective hotel rooms. This feels different. It feels like a dangerous breach of their rules.

“I tipped one of the bell boys to sneak us out. I've been to Paris a hundred times and I've never explored it.”

It sounds like a date to her.

She pulls the bow tight on her wraparound dress and goes to the mirror to put some makeup on despite herself. She can't figure out why she's going along with all of this.

“Have you?” he asks.

“What?”

He's leaning over the back of the couch, long arms dangling down to the floor. He's resembles a puppy like this, happy and free.

“Seen Paris?” He puts a terrible French accent on, dropping the s at the end.

Annabeth turns back to her mirror. “Nope. Always wanted to, never found the time.”

“Then this is a perfect opportunity.”

He bounds up from the couch and over to her, holding out a hand as she sets down her mascara. His grin is wicked, like a firecracker. It makes her take his extended hand and let him pull her up to her feet.

“You look amazing.”

She pulls her hand free to pull on some shoes and taps his chest. “So do you. Now quit breaking rules and smuggle me out of this building.”

He obliges with a grin, opening the door for her and leading her away from the elevators to the stairwell.

“Good thing I didn't wear heels,” she comments as they clatter down the stairs together.

“Mm. You'd probably be taller than me.”

She laughs. “Not quite, I don't think.”

They enter the bustling lobby and Percy immediately directs her away from the front doors towards a fire exit. There, they are met by a nervous looking doorman holding a rack of coats. Annabeth smirks at the theatrics of it all as Percy slips the man an unidentifiable note, clapping him on the shoulder good naturedly. He turns to her, holding out a hand to drag her along after him after the clothing rack.

Her focus falls completely to his hand clasped around hers. The warmth of his palm, the callouses of his fingers rasping against her skin, the rapid pulse in his wrist - or is that hers?

They are outside and across the street, down a narrow alleyway before she manages to pull her hand from his grasp discretely. He's panting and smiling jubilantly, victoriously, too focused on the success of his mission to note her moment of discomfort.

“Okay?” he asks her, breathy voice full of laughter.

He looks at her and she pulls herself together under his gaze, remembering who he is, what they are to each other.

She punches his arm. “Yeah. So is this gross alleyway all we’re gonna see of Paris tonight, or do you have anywhere particular in mind?”

Percy grins in reply and jerks his head further down the alleyway which, now that she looks, opens up on the other end.

“Let's go.”

They stumble out into a narrow road, standing together underneath the yellow glow of a street lamp. The air is warm enough to warrant a cardigan and she wishes she had brought one. Percy, similarly dressed in a Henley shirt and jeans, notices the goosebumps on her arms and smiles.

“Guess we’re gonna have to run to keep warm.”

And they do. Jogging down the pavement past tourists and couples smoking cigarettes and teenagers out past their curfews. They sprint race each other to metro stations and obnoxiously yell in each other's faces when they win. She loses her shoes and he picks them up for her, threatening to throw them into the river before she smacks him in the belly and he hands them back over. They buy crepes filled with Nutella and banana and get it smeared over their faces. Annabeth resists the urge to lick it off Percy’s lips for him.

She watches him tuck his hands into his pockets and resists the urge to pry them loose with her fingers and wrap them together.

He looks unfairly handsome like this. Dressed casually with tousled hair and red cheeks from the running and the cool air. Annabeth isn't sure who made the decision to leave space between them - enough that their elbows or shoulders don't touch as they walk, that they have to tuck themselves closer to pass others on the street, only to fold out again afterwards - but she is simultaneously grateful and displeased with it.

When she isn't actively avoiding looking at Percy, Annabeth is gawping at her surroundings. They walk past the Notre Dame, under the spindly shadows created by its glorious spires and beams, along the river Seine under tall streetlights, down cobbled back streets and past late night Bistros and bars and sex shops. This city is alive and crammed full of culture and age. Annabeth loves it.

All too soon, they are back at the hotel. There is no need to sneak in now, at two o’clock in the morning, the lobby is deathly quiet, the bright lights a sharp contrast to the soft glow of the city outside. They take the elevator in silence and suddenly things feel palpable between them, a tension brims like a physical thing.

Percy walks her to her room and she hesitates in the doorway. She should unlock the door and drag him inside after her. They should take off each other's clothes and fuck in her bed, or on the floor, or in the shower. They should.

But she doesn't open the door. She stands with her back to it instead, holding her key card in her hand as she watches Percy bite his lip and shift his weight.

He doesn't ask to come inside either. Neither of them give excuses of an early start, they just stay where they are, just a metre apart. Annabeth reaches out to press a hand gently to his chest and leans up. She hears his breath hitch as she kisses his cheek and pauses there, held in the moment like a fly in amber.

Then she draws away, taking her hand and the moment with her. Percy blinks at her.

“Good night,” he says quietly as she turns to finally unlock her door.

“Good night, Percy.”

She closes her door and backs up against it, dropping her head into her hands and groaning.

“Fuck.”

* * *

 

“Grover, buddy, you need to stop.”

Percy’s friend makes a feeble attempt to stifle his laughter in his fist. He gives up any pretense of pressing the weights he’s currently positioned under and sits up as he continues to rumble with laughter. Percy kicks his leg and takes his place on the bench.

“You’re the worst,” he mutters as Grover gets into position to spot him, wiping his hand over his face to smother the last bits of laughter.

“Sorry,” he says.

“No you’re not.” Percy wraps his fingers around the bar and shifts his shoulders until he’s comfortable.

“Alright I’m not. But I’ll be more supportive.”

Percy grunts and lifts the bar from the catches, pushing it straight up and then down to his chest. Grover waits for him to repeat this motion ten times and replace the bar in the catches before he speaks again.

“I mean, you didn’t have to agree to go.”

Percy sits up on the bench and wipes his towel across the back of his neck. He looks up at Grover disparagingly.

“I think you’ve forgotten how scary my agent can be.”

Grover nods, conceding the point. Their topic of discussion is the publicity date Percy has been persuaded to go on with an American socialite, Melina Joy Joseph, visiting Paris for a reason unbeknownst to him.

His agent adores pandering Percy to the press, dubbing him a media darling. Percy loves interviews, but he doesn't really see the point of pretending to be with someone for the camera. When he says this to his agent, he receives the standard response of, “All press is good press,” which is frankly irritating and doesn't answer his question at all.

Nevertheless, Percy is going on a publicity date, on one of his very few nights off during the tournament, for the sake of his photo in the papers. At least this might draw any possible attention away from him and Annabeth. No one seems to have caught wind of anything yet, but Percy is sure that it's only a matter of time.

“I mean, you could just tell her you’re in a relationship,” Grover offers.

Percy gives him a look.

Grover raises his hands. “Or not. How does Annabeth feel about this anyway?”

Percy lies back down on the bench, avoiding eye contact. “Haven’t told her yet.”

“That’s weird.”

Percy ignores him, focusing on his grip on the bar.

“When did you last speak to her?”

Percy lifts the weight with a grunt and draws it to his chest. “Couple of nights ago.”

He doesn’t see Grover squint, but he can feel his judgement flying off him in waves. “After the date.”

“It wasn’t a date,” Percy protests as he pushes the bar away from him chest again.

“Sure. You walked around Paris at night, fed each other crepes, she kissed you goodnight - _on the cheek_ \- and you didn’t have sex. Sounds like a date to me.”

“Fuck off.”

“So tonight’s gonna be different?”

Percy drops the bar back into the catches with a little more aggression than necessary. He sits up and frowns at Grover. “Why do you hate me?”

Grover laughs and kicks his leg, they swap out and Percy checks his phone. “Ah crap.”

Grover raises an eyebrow in question.

Percy holds up his phone. “Annabeth,” he says.

He swipes his thumb across the screen to open up her text and feels a strange mixture of excitement and guilt trip around in his stomach.

**Did you die?**

He barks a laugh, relief filling his chest momentarily, and texts back immediately.

**Sorry, had a crazy couple of days.**

**I saw. Congrats on destroying Ferez, I thought he was going to hit you with his racquet.**

**You got plans tonight?**

Ah, and here it is. Percy considers lying for a moment, before realising that would be idiotic as Annabeth would see his face in the newspapers in the morning and they made a specific rule about not lying for a reason.

**Me too! He’s a scary fucker.**

**Actually... I got roped into this stupid thing by my agent.**

**...What is it?**

Deep breath.

**A publicity date with Melina Joy Joseph. My agent is all about that ~all press is good press~ bs. I’d rather spend the night in your hotel room, believe me.**

**I’m sorry x**

Then he has to wait for her reply. Grover is watching him expectantly from the bench, ignoring the weights he’s supposed to be pressing completely. In fairness, Percy’s doing a terrible job of spotting him. Then an ellipsis appears on his screen as Annabeth begins to type. It feels like an age before her message comes through.

**Yikes. Enjoy that.**

**Raincheck til tomorrow, I guess.**

Percy scrambles to respond, unable to process how he feels about her reply.

**Absolutely tomorrow. I’m all yours.**

She doesn’t text him back and Percy’s gut churns uncomfortably for the rest of the afternoon. Right up until he is standing in the hotel foyer wearing a tweed jacket over navy pants and a button down. He feels inexplicably nervous. Not like he had done when he’d knocked on Annabeth’s door two nights ago and taken her around Paris, nor like how he had when she had kissed his cheek at the end of the night.

What he feels now is trepidation. He hasn’t been on a date for so long, never mind a publicity date with someone he’d never met before. He and Annabeth had been seeing each other for five months, sleeping together and texting almost daily, and in that time he hasn’t been with anyone else, hasn’t wanted to. This evening feels like a mildly unnecessary, exhausting exercise to go through.

“Percy Jackson?”

The voice that calls him is attached to a very beautiful brunette in a slim fitting pale pink dress. She’s a head shorter than him, which means he has to stoop down to kiss her cheek in greeting. He feels awkward and big next to her as they walk out of the foyer. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, choosing to tuck them into his pockets. The doorman calls them a taxi and then it’s far more awkward inside the cab, drowning in silence and a complete lack of distraction. Percy fights the absurd urge to text Annabeth about how badly this is already going.

He remembers his manners when they reach the restaurant and offers his hand to Melina to help her out of the cab, a feat she achieves with impressive grace considering the tightness of her dress. He reminds himself not to be a jackass to Melina this evening - it’s not her fault he’s in love with Annabeth Chase.

Percy physically and mentally stumbles over that thought momentarily before sweeping it aside to process at another time.

They are seated next to the window, in plain sight where they’re supposed to be, in this absurdly expensive restaurant. Percy vaguely wonders whether his agent will be compensating him for tonight as Melina orders a thirty euro bottle of wine. He resigns himself to an unenjoyable evening and asks Melina what she likes to do in her free time.

Skiing, apparently. And drinking expensive wine at an alarming rate. An hour into the date and Percy can’t wholly complain. The thing is, Melina Joy Joseph is a perfectly nice woman; she has a sense of humour and supports the Mets and seems to live a pretty interesting life. Her faults are not her own, they are just that she isn’t Annabeth Chase.

Percy excuses himself for a bathroom break as she looks at the dessert menu. He stares at himself in the bathroom mirror for a few seconds, feeling as tired as he looks, before slapping wet hands to his face and walking out. He’s accosted though, before he can get too far, and is dragged into the disabled toilet.

“What the hell?”

“Hi,” Annabeth says, locking the door behind her.

“Annabeth. What the- what the hell?”

She bites her lip, and once Percy gets over his initial shock, he thinks he might die. He’s so happy to see her. After the unsurity following their non-date and her brisk message earlier and a painful evening with a woman he doesn’t want to be on a date with, Annabeth is like a siren, calling him into shore. He just hopes he won’t get broken on her brittle rocks.

“I can’t believe you’re on a date,” she tells him, dragging him towards her by his belt loops.

“I can’t believe you’re jealous that I’m on a date.”

She scoffs, face just inches from his. “Fuck you.”

Percy tilts his head, feeling more returned to himself than he has for days. “I think that’s your job.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes before she kisses him, already unbuckling his belt. Percy shoves her t-shirt up to press his hands to the warm skin of her back and ribs. He presses her back against the door, pushing his knee between her legs until he feels wood. She grinds against him and he moves his hands to her hips to shift her up until their hips lock together. Annabeth loses her breath into his mouth and Percy is desperate to have more of her. He tilts his head to mouth at her jaw and neck.

Annabeth tugs at his hips suddenly and moves them around until he’s the one crowded against the door. Then she unzips his pants and drops to her knees. Her tongue his tracing patterns on his hip when his phone rings.

“Answer it,” he hears Annabeth murmur, so he does.

“Percy, where are you?”

“Grover, I- ah. Um.”

“Dude, your date is looking a little lonely and your agent is flipping out.”

Annabeth’s hand is confidently firm around his cock and then her warm lips close around him and he nearly drops his phone. “I gotta go,” he manages before hanging up.

He barely manages to pocket his phone before his hands are drawn to Annabeth’s hair, pushing it back and threading his fingers into it, careful not to pull too hard. He’s unable to completely stop the thrust of his hips but she doesn’t seem to mind, speeding up with his movements and pinching the skin of his thigh under her blunt nails.

When Percy finishes, he smothers a shout with his fist and Annabeth doesn’t move off him until he’s done. Then she’s standing up and zipping him back into his pants and buckling his belt for him. Percy is paralysed for a few more moments.

“You’re gonna kill me,” he pants.

She kisses his mouth as he leans back against the door, dazed. She’s smirking.

“You’re so smug,” he says.

She grins and straightens his tie. “Go gettem, Tiger.”

Percy grabs for her sloppily, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist and kissing her deeply. Annabeth is soft and pliant against him, curling her fingers into his hair. Percy’s sure he could stay here forever. But then she’s drawing away and patting his chest.

“You need to go.”

“I’m not gonna be able to stop thinking about you all night.”

She winks at him as he starts backwards out the door. “That was kinda the point.”

As Annabeth had orchestrated, Percy spends the rest of the evening with Melina in a trembling, jittery mess. All he can think of is Annabeth's mouth, her lithe body pressed up to his, her smug grin and fast wink. Melina is speaking and he tries so hard to focus on her words but he can feel his pulse in his ears, drowning everything else out.

He manages to eat some of his dessert and pay the bill without causing any huge offence, then they are back in the taxi. Percy has to focus his mind entirely on the stitching in the back of the headrest in front of him else his mind will fall back to Annabeth and he’ll be faced with an embarrassing situation to fumble his way out of.

When they pull up to the hotel and climb out of the taxi, Melina takes his arm and he vaguely registers a few camera flashes before they are inside and making straight for the elevators. Percy is now counting down the seconds until he can make his getaway, watching the numbers of the elevator slowly climb as he drums his fingers against his thighs. This feeling is reminiscent of waiting in the bays before walking out onto the court.

Melina steps out at the fifth floor and Percy walks with her, intending to drop her off at her door. When they reach it and she pulls out her key card, she lingers, watching him expectantly. For the first time since Annabeth had dragged him into that bathroom, he pays attention to Melina’s expression. She smiling in a sultry manner, eyes intent on his face through thick lashes.

“So, I know this date is just for the press, but that doesn't mean we can't hang out for real right?”

Panic flares through him. He honestly hadn’t expected this, especially with how badly he’d behaved towards her for the whole night. He’s startled into silence as she waits expectantly.

“I, um. I’m not...avaliable for that...at this time.”

Melina blinks at him, deflated. “Oh, okay.”

And then Percy bolts.

* * *

 

Annabeth had returned to her room with the full intention of waiting up for Percy come by after his date to return the favour, but thirty minutes into reading her notes for her game tomorrow, her energy is flagging. Her mind flits between Percy in his jacket with his hands in her hair and her match, the words and diagrams on the page flitting into half visioned shots across the net.

Tomorrow is the quarter-finals and Annabeth’s opponent is a strong contender to win the tournament, having won the final of the Madrid Open in straight sets. Annabeth has watched and re-watched her games, noting any weaknesses she might be able to take advantage of. She and Chiron have drawn up a strong game plan, one she knows gives her a strong chance tomorrow. The bubble in Annabeth’s stomach feels something closer to anticipation than nerves. She always feels jittery before a match, worried she’ll flake or choke at the critical moment, but throughout this tournament she has been consumed by the itch in her feet to get back out on court.

She’s eager and ready, not only to win, but to _play_.

Exhaustion sweeps through her though, burying her deeper against her pillows and blurring the ink on the pages in front of her. Her bed swallows her, enveloping her in warmth and comfort, a symphony to her aching muscles. And then she’s gone.

Then next things she’s aware of is a quiet click of her door and a deep voice whispering her name. She barely stirs, but shifts towards the voice, Percy’s voice. Annabeth is vaguely aware of her glasses being removed and a crumple of papers being rescued from the tangle of sheets and then soft lips are pressed to her temple. With the realisation that he is leaving, she fumbles a hand out to grab some part of him. His wrist. She grips and tugs.

Above her, a quiet breath, then the light is switched off and he’s shedding some of his clothes before climbing into bed with her.

* * *

 

It takes Annabeth a few moments after initially waking up to realise something is wrong. This is not the first time she has woken up with Percy’s long limbs wrapped around her, his face pressed into her neck, hands curled around hers and cradled to her chest. She’s familiar with the lean lines of his body, with the smell of his shampoo on her pillow, with the slow inhale through his nose as he begins to wake up.

But this is all usually accompanied by an erection pressed against the back of her thigh, by his hand untangling from hers to press between her legs, kisses smothered to her neck and jaw.

This morning, she wakes up wearing long pyjama pants and a t-shirt. Reaching behind herself, she feels that Percy is wearing a tank top and boxers, his erection notably absent. He’s still pressed up against her, chest to her back, legs tangled, fingers enveloped over her heart. The first emotion she can register is a feeling of rightness, which is rapidly gobbled up by panic. She’s well aware this is another rule they have broken; and although it is not the first, it feels like the biggest.

Carefully, she frees herself from his limbs and slides out of bed. Percy rolls onto his front and buries his face in her pillow. Annabeth feels a stab of something in her chest, sharp and soft all at once. Her emotions are too much at once to process and she needs to leave this room to be able to do so. She needs to leave this sight of Percy Jackson sleeping in her bed with rumpled hair and sheet creases on his cheeks.

She needs to leave because her chest is too tight, because her skin is prickled with goosebumps and she can feel her pulse in her fingertips. She needs to leave because this is a sight she feels like she wants to keep on seeing, tomorrow and the next day and the next. And the thought terrifies her.

Annabeth skips a shower and scrambles into some clothes, grabbing her match notes and her kit bag before darting out the door. She’s jogging as soon as she is out of the room and bouncing on her toes as she waits for the elevator doors to open. Unable to get the image of Percy hugging her pillow off her mind until she’s thirty minutes into practice, returning every ball the machine lobs at her with new unrestrained vigour.

“Save some for the match, kid!”

She turns to see Chiron rolling towards her in his wheelchair, his expression unreadable as he squints into the sun. Annabeth clutches her side where a stitch begins to burn, only now realising how hard she had been pushing.

“I’m fine,” she dismisses, but she jogs over to the other side of the court to switch the ball machine off.

Chiron picks up her notes from her discarded gym bag and studies her scrawled handwriting through his glasses. Annabeth takes a long swig of her drink before peering down at him. She still can’t read his expression.

“I’m ready,” she tells him. “ _We’re_ ready.”

Then, he slowly replaced the papers and looks up at her, appraising her carefully. A smile creeps across his face like a sunrise. She doesn’t realise it’s happening until it’s full blown and blinding.

“I know, kiddo. I believe in you.”

She reaches out to grip his hand and feels his reassurance, his confidence, surge through her. It straightens her spine and sends a tingling feeling all the way down to her toes. She feels known, she feels _strong_.

She feels ready.


	3. Wimbledon (July)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im......super sorry for how long this update took. you guys are great and your support and patience is wholly appreciated thank u <3

* * *

   

 _And if it's ever gonna happen_  
_So as I'm standing at the station_  
_It might be over soon_

 

* * *

 

There’s something about Wimbledon which always feels different to Annabeth. Steeped in tradition: strawberries with cream, white tennis gear, and perfectly trimmed grass. Though it's not her home turf, she has always felt a sense of coming back to something when she steps onto the court in her white uniform. It feels like the beginning of everything. She had watched this as a child sprawled on the carpet of her parent’s living room, entranced by all of its grandeur, dreaming of the day she would play there herself.

On this mid-June day, Annabeth’s shoulders prickle under the beating sun and the crowd buzz at her ears as she watches her opponent make her serve. Touch to the peak of her cap, two bounces of the ball, eyes on Annabeth’s feet, a shift of her left foot, the toe pushing outwards. She’s going long, cross court. Annabeth is moving before the ball has left her opponent’s hand. The treads of her shoes easily grip the grass and she backhands the ball across court into the opposite corner to which her opponent has run to. The point is hers.

Annabeth punches the air with her fist, exuberant and elated. Adrenaline soars through her system and she feels the grin on her face before she can stop it; then realises she doesn’t want to stop it. She lets herself smile freely and take in the noise of the crowd like it’s energising her very bones. She loves winning, loves this game; there’s nothing quite like it.

She loves the fierce, unforgiving nature of tournaments. Once you’re out, you’re out - something she has learned the hard way over her years of playing. A tournament is weeks and months and years of buildup - of early morning and late night practice, of hours in the gym, of painful physio sessions, of restless nights reliving game plays, of dreams built up and up and up. After all of that, one wide shot can bring everything crashing back down to Earth. There is no redeeming match or wildcard back in. Once that final blow is played, you’re just out. It allows no room for error, no bad days or being off your game. You have to give it all or you’ve lost everything.

It’s just about the only thing she’s ever been able to make a commitment to in her life.

Her opponent looks devastated- as she should, for losing her first match of the tournament - but she shakes Annabeth’s hand at the net and gives her a small smile. Annabeth returns to her chair but where she would usually pack up her stuff ready to leave the court, she stops and she looks around herself.

The crowds are still cheering, for her. As they have been for the entire match. She feels their voices and the clap of their hands sing through her veins. She returns it to them, raising her hands above her head to clap and thank all of them. Annabeth has never paid much attention to the crowd, has always tried to drown them out in order to focus. Today she stands and claps to them like she owes them a debt.

Eventually, she gathers her things and, after signing a few autographs, goes inside to be tortured by the press for a few painful minutes. Piper finds her beforehand, squeezing her into a congratulatory hug before reminding her to play nice.

“I can’t make any promises,” Annabeth tells her.

Piper gives her a slightly pained look. “Just try not to hurt their feelings too much. These middle-aged, white men can be awful sensitive.”

Annabeth doesn’t have a chance to congratulate her on that reply as she’s nudged into the press area by Piper’s clipboard. Chiron is waiting behind the panel and pats her shoulder as she sits down next to him. The press look as uninviting as ever as they clamour for Piper’s attention to ask the first question. A lady wearing a beige dress suit is picked first.

“Great game. I couldn’t help but notice you interacting with the crowd a lot more than you usually do. What brought on that change?”

Annabeth is momentarily surprised by the question, because she’s been asking it of herself all morning. “I guess... I just realised how much of an influence they have. I was really flagging for a bit in that second set and their support helped me bring it back. It’s usually a distraction so I try to drown the noise out, but it can be a good boost if you let it be. I guess it makes you feel a little less alone out there sometimes.”

Piper takes a moment too long to pick the next questioner, staring at Annabeth with unveiled shock. Annabeth is a little surprised herself, she’s never been so candid with the press. Or given an answer much longer than five words.

The rest of the conference passes in a blur and then she’s dismissed and walking down a hallway wondering how far away her bed is. It’s barely two o’clock in the afternoon, but she’s exhausted.

Without warning, she’s being pulled into a dim room which smells like a janitor's closet. Probably because it is a janitor's closet. She’s about to lash out at her abductor before she realises that it’s Percy standing in front of her, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, one hand still resting on her wrist.

“Hello,” he says, like he’s just knocked on her hotel door and not dragged her into a small, smelly closet.

“It stinks in here.”

He frowns but his smile is playful. “I mean, you don’t smell too wonderful yourself,” he teases, earning a smack to the arm. “And we’ve definitely hung out in worse places.”

By “hung out” he means, “had sex”, but Percy never says that.

“Well I’m putting this high on the list of places I don’t want to repeat any experiences in.”

“Noted.” He pushes some hair back from her face. “How are you?”

She leans back against the wall of the closet. “Tired.”

“I heard you won.”

“Oh, so you weren’t watching?”

“No, _I_ take our rules very seriously, you see.” His mouth and voice is teasing. His hand has come to rest against her neck, thumb smoothing gentle circles into her skin.

Annabeth scoffs. “Sure you do.” Her fingers tuck into the front pockets of his jeans. She doesn’t tug him closer, just lets them rest there. “Your first match is tomorrow afternoon, right?”

Percy nods. Commenting neither on her knowledge of his schedule or the neediness in her voice. “You wanna come over tonight?”

“Sure. I gotta go back to my room and shower then I need to meet up with Chiron, but I can come to you around seven?”

“I’ll order room service.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“Mhmm.” He tips his head down to press a quiet kiss to her mouth. “See you later, Chase,” he says before slipping out the door.

Annabeth is left by herself in the dank closet with her swelling thoughts. With Percy in here, it had seemed like a brighter room, less close and awful smelling. Now, the darkness clouds her eyes as her heart sinks down in her chest. Percy had barely kissed her. Sure, they had arranged to meet up later, but their entire interaction had been decidedly non-sexual. And she had felt light and calm and _settled_ the entire time. Like a cold compress had been pressed to her forehead.

Now she feels heat creep back up her neck uncomfortably. She grabs for the door handle, desperate to be out of there, and fumbles into the hallway again. A few heads turn and she wonders vaguely if those same heads had turned for Percy a minute earlier. She’s too preoccupied to dwell on it for long though and sets off down the hallway to find a ride back to the hotel.

* * *

 

Sally Jackson is the best mother on the planet, in Percy’s entirely unbiased opinion.

She had first started dragging Percy to and from the local Youth Club when he was twelve years old, a desperate ploy to use up some of his excess energy and which ultimately introduced him to tennis. She had encouraged him to keep up the hobby throughout middle and high school, insisting that extra curriculars were good for college applications, frequently commenting that he could play professionally if he put himself to it. Though it wasn’t until Percy’s sports coach pulled him aside half way through his junior year to tell him he had a real talent he hadn’t seen for years that Percy dared to believe it. It was one thing being told by his mom, who also told him he could be an astronaut if he wanted to be, an entirely different thing to be told by an underpaid teacher with no investment in Percy’s future.

It had planted a seed, one which his mother encouraged to grow. She took him to practice, paid for a coach, encouraged him to stay at home to save money while he trained, went along to all of his early tournaments.

It wasn’t until Percy was nineteen years old that this arrangement had to change. He’d made it through to the quarters of the Cincinnati Open, a fluke in his first year playing professionally, and one look at his mom’s pale face in the supporters box had been all it had taken for him to choke. He’d lost three sets to one.

Since then, he and his mom had come to an agreement; no courtside watching. She didn’t usually attend tournaments at all, with the exception of the US Open. It was their home ground after all. Even there, she didn’t sit in the supporters box, instead hiding out where Percy couldn’t see her. She never complained about this arrangement, insisting that she always felt too sick to watch it in person, preferring to watch it behind the safety of a television screen.

This year though, they’ve made an exception for her to come to Wimbledon. Their excuse is that she and her husband, Paul, are starting their European tour here before they fly out to Paris next week. Secretly, Percy’s glad they’re here. He’s missed his family and wishes he could get over his fear of having them courtside when he plays.

His match in the third round is tomorrow and today is a rest day so he's using it to show his mom around the grounds.

“So where’d you leave Paul today?” Percy asks her as he holds a door leading onto a rooftop terrace open for her.

She ducks under his arm. “He’s not quite recovered from the flight, so I left him to sleep for a while. He’ll join us for lunch.”

“Sweet. How’s Sam?”

Samantha is Percy’s fifteen year old half-sister. He’s been told she’s a five foot three female version of him with more brains crammed into her head. He can’t argue. She’s the biggest nerd he knows, aside from Annabeth possibly. He wonders if they would get along.

“She’s enjoying camp. She misses you.”

“I miss her too, the nerd. I’ll call her later.”

“Don’t call your sister a nerd.”

“Mom. She’s literally at a camp for nerds, where she does nerd stuff everyday with other nerds. I bet she’s in heaven right now.”

Sally rolls her eyes but drops it as he leads her along the sunlit terrace. The pass by groups of people, tennis players and coaches alike, taking a place well-earned break, eating the customary strawberries and cream as they enjoy the sunshine.

Percy remains silent, watching her take it all in. Her smile seems a little sad to him, regretful, maybe, and he feels a familiar prod of guilt in his chest for banning her from his tournaments. Then she looks back to him and her happy smile is back on, pride shining out of her.

“I'm glad you're here, mom.” He wraps an arm around her shoulders.

She pats his chest. “Me too, sweetheart.”

Percy’s about to suggest they get some strawberries and cream from somewhere when he spots a familiar face across the terrace. He grins and steers his mom towards her.

“Annabeth! Annabeth, hey!”

Annabeth turns towards the sound of her name, visibly startled. She’s wearing a light summer dress and Percy is reminded of the night they’d first hooked up - the night they’d made their tenuous agreement. Her dress is vastly different to the one she’d been wearing then, but his mind jumps back before he can stop it. She had looked beautiful then, as she does now. It’s almost painful sometimes, how beautiful she is. Whether she’s wearing a dress and high heels or a tennis uniform with her hair pulled back and a layer of sweat over her skin. She’s a brilliant, beautiful force of nature. He’s definitely in love with her.

Percy watches Annabeth’s expression fall into a pleased smile before it is swept away by alarm when she spots his mom. He barrels in anyway, stumbling head first as always. She remains rooted to the spot next to the balcony overlooking the grounds.

“Hi,” she says when they are close enough. She appears to have composed herself and wiped her face into a blank palette.

“Hey. So this is my mom, Sally.”

Annabeth smiles politely, his mom elbows him.

“Oh, this is Annabeth.”

His mom holds out a hand which Annabeth takes and says warmly, “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“And you, Mrs Jackson. Have you been to Wimbledon before?”

“Oh, not for years. It's changed since I was last here.”

“Are you hanging around for Percy’s game tomorrow?”

“I am. I'll be hiding out in the back room though.”

“Oh?” For the first time, she glances at Percy, eyebrows raised. But Sally answers for him.

“I get too nervous,” she says.

“I see,” Annabeth says, though Percy can tell she sees through it. One glance at his mom tells him that she sees it too. “Listen, I'm so sorry to be rude but I have to meet my coach, he'll kill me if I'm late.”

“Oh, not to worry,” Sally says. “Good luck with your next match.”

“Thank you. It was nice to meet you.”

Annabeth pointedly avoids Percy’s attempted eye contact as he watches her leave. When he turns back to his mother, she's giving him a look.

“She seems nice,” she says mildly.

He nods and takes her arm to gently guide her towards a table so they can order some food. He's desperate to distract himself from Annabeth’s reaction, her distant voice and avoidant stare. He doesn't know what to make of it.

Not for the first time since he met Annabeth Chase, he’s uncertain of where he stands with her. It is the first time that he’s worried about that fact though.

Before he commits himself fully to distraction, he pulls out his phone to send a text to her.

**Sorry about ambushing you. Let me know if you want to meet later x**

And then he pockets his phone and all thoughts regarding Annabeth, for the afternoon at least.

* * *

 

Annabeth is staring at Percy’s text, her thumbs hovering over the screen, not quite committed to the various replies she's planned in her head.

She can't stop thinking about Percy’s mom.

Even in their brief interaction, Annabeth had been able to connect what information Percy had given about his mother with the woman standing in front of her.

Single mother for most of his life, worked crappy jobs to afford his coaches and send herself to night school, now a published author. There was something hardened about her; Percy had proudly called her tough but had never quite explained why. There had been a mention of a step-father before Sally’s current husband, but Percy had shrugged back and Annabeth hadn’t pushed for information. The nature of their relationship had kept her from doing so.

She feels herself wanting to push now, and it’s more than just her curious, demanding nature. It’s a need to have more than carnal knowledge of him. To know what his previous step-father was like and what he looks like wearing pyjamas on a Sunday morning and what he eats with pancakes and what he’s like in the comfort of his family’s home. It’s a need to know him, all of him.

It’s a need to be known right back, and accepted without question.

It's instinct that makes her back away from these needs. A learned response.  A lesson preached inside her own head so many times that it has become an ingrained, innate response to any connotations of intimacy. Any deviation from it feels wrong. Terrifying. Exposing.

Annabeth is found by Piper, minutes or hours later, sitting on her bed with her phone held loosely in her hands. She feels the mattress shift as Piper sits next to her and watches as she plucks Annabeth’s phone from between her numb fingers. The screen had gone blank a long time ago but Piper enters the lock code without asking and reads the messages still open on the screen.

After a moment she lets out a small sigh and hands Annabeth’s phone back over.

“You're gonna end it, aren't you?”

Annabeth closes her eyes and makes no reply apart from a small nod of her head.

“Well shit. Your timing couldn't be much worse, Chase.”

Annabeth opens her eyes slowly, every movement feeling clingy and slow. She looks at Piper, frowning. “What are you talking about?”

Piper lifts her own phone up for Annabeth to see. It takes her a moment to figure out what she's reading - an email, briefly detailing a news report containing photos of two famous tennis stars which will be released tomorrow morning, the title of it being, “ _The Perfect Match?_ ”

“Fucking hell,” Annabeth says, falling back on the bed. “I bet they were really pleased with themselves over that headline.”

“Probably some intern,” Piper commented quietly. “Annabeth, I can't stop the shit from hitting the fan, but we can make it a little less spectacular. What do you want to do?”

Annabeth doesn't say anything, she just lies with her hands folded on her stomach and her eyes closed.

“Annabeth,” Piper presses.

“I want to sleep,” she says.

“Well, you can't. You have to deal with this, you can't bury it like…”

Annabeth's eyes open and find Piper’s. Piper visibly bites back the comment she'd been about to spill and sighs. “You can't hide in here forever.”

Annabeth deflates. “I know.”

“We'll call a press conference tonight and release a statement.”

“No. I'm seeing Percy tonight.”

Piper raises an eyebrow.

“I'm ending it,” Annabeth says heavily.

“You say that like it's something you have to do. Like it's not your choice.”

Annabeth hauls herself up from the bed and grabs a towel, walking towards the en suite. “It is something I have to do. And I'm not talking to the press. If they're not asking a question about tennis, I'm not answering it.”

“Annabeth,” Piper protests.

Annabeth looks at her and waits for an argument, one against her ending things with Percy, or her stubbornness with the press. But neither come. She just closes her mouth and gets up from the bed.

“Alright,” Piper says, walking towards the door. “I just hope you know what you're doing.”

Piper lets the door close heavily behind her, sucking all sound out of the room. Annabeth remains standing where she is, towel clutched in her hand, trying to figure out when she'd let things get so messy. There isn't a definitive point in her mind, only a stream of flitting memories. A thousand things which have cluttered what should have been a no string attached arrangement into something closer to a relationship.

Percy’s hands on her face in a dim storage cupboard, his warm body curved around hers in the morning, his laugh when he's lying down, the crinkles around his eyes when he smiles, the quiet sigh he releases after she kisses him sometimes, the noise he makes in the back of his throat when he comes.

Chasing each other down cobbled streets, watching his match on her hotel room television, hands shaken over laughable rules, a seven seven and a gentle hand on her back in a room full of noise. Walking into the wrong hotel room.

If she really thinks about it, she had lost this game from the very beginning.

* * *

 

It feels like the ending to a show. Everything is moving in slow motion or it’s going too fast to focus on. Percy can’t figure it out but he feels like his feet are stuck in the mud while Annabeth speeds around him in blurs of light. It’s like standing in the middle of a carousel as it spins and spins around.

She looks softer tonight, the dimmed lights of the hotel room casting long shadows across her skin. It feels as though she is holding him closer and already pushing further away from him. And he can do nothing to stop it: even as he crowds over her and clasps her hands in his, pressing down into the pillow above her head, even as he drops his face to her neck and feels her arms wrap around him, even as she sighs so softly into his hair and her lips brush his temple. He can feel her slipping away. Holding him close one last time before she releases him.

If he had any ounce of dignity he wouldn’t allow this. But Annabeth has stripped him bare of his self-control and he wants nothing more than to hold her while he still can.

This was their agreement.

He has no right to be angry or sad or disappointed. She told him clearly what she wanted from the start and he had gone along with the rules and promises and boundaries all along while knowing these were things he could never keep to. _Casual_ has never been an option for how he feels about Annabeth Chase. He’d been hit by a slow moving bullet which has been steadily tearing through him for the past six months; now it’s about to leave an exponential exit wound, much larger and more difficult to heal than the mark made on entry.

But still, he can’t stop it.

He can’t withdraw first, not even for self-preservation. He watches her fall asleep, face tucked into the pillow, hands curled into loose fists by her chin, lips parted by her slow breaths. He is drawn closer to her, magnetised, pulled in by her light and warmth. He brushes her hair out of her face and kisses her forehead. He wraps one arm around her and holds her as close as he can.

And then he sleeps, knowing in some small place inside his chest that she won’t be there when he wakes up.

* * *

 

“I have to say, Tony, something just doesn’t quite feel right today.”

Annabeth presses her earbud harder into her ear to hear the commentators’ voices over the wheezing gym machines around her. The words pin something down in her chest uncomfortably.

“I know what you mean, Jackson is not looking good today. He’s thrown away a lot of easy points, and not because of his usual flare. It almost looks like he’s wound too tight. And after losing that second game, it’s going to be very difficult for him to bring things back.”

“You’re right. This might be Jackson’s last match at Wimbledon this year.”

Annabeth’s feet pound against the track of the treadmill as the words reverberate through her. She can picture Percy so clearly in her mind; sitting on the sidelines with his head bowed, shoulders slumped. She hasn’t seen him in two days. Her last image of him had been of his face pressed into his pillow, mouth open, eyes closed, hair swooped over his forehead.

Now that lies in ruins.

Guilt trips through her, making her feel physically sick. She had been able to separate herself from her feelings, had kept the spider’s web bundled and untouched. Now it threatens to untangle.

The commentators are speaking again and Annabeth zones back into their conversation; focusing equal concentration into listening and not tripping over her own feet.

“We’ve seen Jackson rise up brilliantly over the years, Tony. Do you think he’s come as far as he can go?”

A sigh. “I don’t know. It’s so easy for players to plateau when they reach a certain place in their career, but I hope this isn’t what we’re seeing today. I for one, feel like there’s a lot Jackson hasn’t shown us yet.”

“So this is a blip? A choke?”

Tony laughs - one sharp scoff -  in Annabeth’s ear and she wants to swat the noise away like an incessant insect. “Could be. Like you said, maybe something isn’t quite right for him today. Something has knocked him off balance.”

“And that can be an easy thing to happen. Some days you just wake up and something feels off. I remember losing the French Open myself, I’d woken up that morning and my string went in my racquet, everything felt cursed from that second. When you get into that mindset it’s so hard to pull yourself out.”

“Well, let’s hope Jackson can do it. I’m not quite ready to see him say good bye yet.”

“You and me, both.”

He couldn’t do it. He made a valiant effort, winning his first serve and breaking his opponent in theirs, but in the end it was a battle already lost. The game requires every ounce of a player’s focus, determination, and self-will. It is unmerciful and unforgiving.

This is exactly why Annabeth didn’t want a relationship, exactly why she ended things. Because how could they both be their best at this game while giving so much to one another? She just hadn’t broken ties soon enough; she had let their lives intertwine, let emotions develop and distractions become worse and worse. Now Percy is about to lose his shot at winning Wimbledon - because he really really could do it - because of her and her selfishness.

“Oh no - jeez that looked bad. Jackson has fallen pretty badly trying to make that shot.”

Annabeth hits the stop button on the treadmill as she focuses on the commentator’s voices again.

“He’s not getting up...it looks like his knee.”

“I know he had problems with that a few years ago. Yeah, he looks like he’s in a lot of pain. Looking at the replay - jeez, he twisted it, do you see?”

“Yeah, that looks pretty bad. I don’t think he’s gonna be able to finish, to be honest. The medic’s looking at him now.”

Annabeth can’t breathe. She feels like her heart is dropping into her stomach. She’s gripping the sides of the treadmill so hard her knuckles have turned white but she can’t unclench them, can’t damnwell move because Percy is hurt. He’s hurt and she’s miles away and could do absolutely nothing to help even if she wasn’t. He’s hurt, he’s hurt, he’s hurt.

Could she have done any more damage?

“It looks like they’re gonna lift him out of there; he can’t stand on that knee, never mind play a match.”

“It’s heartbreaking. What an awful way for him to leave the tournament…”

Annabeth yanks her headphones out and climbs off the treadmill. She weaves through the other machines, ignoring the strange looks she’s getting, and charges into the changing rooms. She doesn’t stop until she finds a toilet cubicle and sits down on the toilet lid with her head in her hands.

She can’t breathe. Blood roars in her ears, deafening and relentless, and she can’t breathe.

Annabeth spends the next few seconds, minutes (hours?) staring at the back of the cubicle door as her lungs finally get enough air and her heart stops beating so fast and she begins to untangle the complicated web in her chest. Or rather, it untangles by itself and she doesn’t try to stop it.

Guilt. That’s the first feeling she recognises. Guilt over Percy getting hurt, guilt for not letting him go soon enough, for taking so much from him. She feels sick and heavy with it, and tired, so damn tired.

Then comes fear and regret and pain and sadness and anger and heartbreak and sadness sadness sadness. All tripping over one another to get her attention. The last one sinks its talons into her chest and holds on too damn tight. And it’s the sadness, the pain of its tight grip, that forces her to realise that she loved him. Loves him. Misses him.

Annabeth wraps her arms around herself and lets herself do something she hasn’t for years; she cries. Quiet tears that track down her face and take, and take, and take from her. She sits, alone in a bathroom cubicle, and cries until she can’t cry any more. Then, with her head feeling stuffy and her chest feeling empty, she wipes her face and blows her nose and walks out of the cubicle without looking back.

It’s time for her to focus on what’s important again.


	4. US Open (August)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [TW for mention of eating disorder]

 

 

  _Why can’t we laugh now like we did then?_ __  
_How come I see you and ache instead?_ __  
~~_How come you only look pleased in bed?_  
~~ Let's climb the cliff edge and jump again

* * *

 

“So what does it feel like to be back home?”

The interviewer has short blonde hair and reminds Percy of his seventh grade English teacher, which makes him warm to her a little. She has a nice smile and actually talked to him before the camera was switched on. It makes him feel a bit better, but still less comfortable than he usually feels with a microphone clipped to his shirt.

He shifts on the unreasonably uncomfortable stool he’s been placed on and tries not to fiddle with the ID badge around his neck.

_What does it feel like to be back home?_

Exhilarating, nerve wracking, right, wrong, too much, and not enough all at once?

“It feels great,” he tells the interviewer. “It’s great to be back.”

She nods and smiles and it’s very comforting.

“There’s been a lot of narrative leading up to this tournament - what with your injury and rumours about your personal life....do you feel like those are going to stand in your way?”

It’s a heavily loaded question. A shotgun aimed right at his chest, impossible to ignore. Percy swallows the tension away with years of practice.

“Not at all. I’ve been working hard with my coach and physio to get back to full health. I’m lucky to have a great team behind me to make sure I’m at my best.”

“They also appear to have been hiding you,” she teases. “You haven’t been seen on any of the practice courts for the past week or so as expected - where have you been hiding out?”

Percy laughs, feeling a little more relaxed. “I didn’t think I had been hiding actually. I’ve been training down at the old YMCA I used train at back when I was a kid.”

“Oh really? Why there?”

“I guess I needed to be reminded what this game means to me, and it all began there so what better place is there to go?”

She smiles and nods in understanding. “So have you been reminded?”

“Yeah. I think I have.”

“And what is it then, that tennis means to you?”

Percy takes a breath. “I guess... I was sort of all over the place when I was younger. I mean I have the best mom in the world, but I wasn't always the easiest kid, ya know? So when she enrolled me in this tennis club at the YMCA, I hated it at first, but then it became my refuge, I guess. Somewhere I could go back to and focus all the pent up energy I always had; it helped a lot with managing my ADHD - before I knew I _had_ ADHD. And tennis is something that you only become better at when you push yourself, when you dedicate yourself to it fully and give it your all. I’ve realised that more recently - that I can still love the game and be at my best.”

She’s staring at him and it takes a moment for her to reply. Percy panics briefly until she clears her throat and tells him candidly, “You're a very passionate man.”

He feels himself blush and feels like a dumb kid. “Well I don't know about that.”

She smiles again, her unanswered question from earlier forgotten. “Well we're all behind you, Percy. Good luck with the rest of the tournament.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

 

Annabeth shuts off the TV and stares at her bleak reflection in the black screen for a while. _I can still love the game and be at my best_. Percy’s words loop around in her head, familiar and familiar and familiar. She’d said those words to him months ago, lying together in a bed like the one she sits on now as their breaths caught (and caught and caught).

 _“It’s a_ game _, Annabeth. You’re supposed to enjoy playing it.”_

 _She bats his chest lazily. “I_ do _enjoy it. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t push myself to be better at it. It may be a game, but it’s also a highly competitive professional sport. It’s a career.”_

_He turns his head to look at her, smushing his rumpled hair into the pillow. “Don’t you find it exhausting? To be that hard on yourself all the time?”_

_Annabeth shakes her head. “It’s worth it though. Nobody worth remembering earned that without working hard.”_

_Percy frowns at the ceiling and sighs. “I just love the game too much to do that to myself.”_

_Annabeth turns onto her side, curving her arm under her pillow as she frowns at Percy. “I can still love the game and be at my best, Percy.”_

_He rolls onto his side as well, slotting his knee between both of hers and resting his arm over the dip of her waist. Annabeth shuffles closer and starts running her fingers over his collarbones. He’s softest there, where freckles paint constellations into his skin._

_“You’re too serious for your own good,” he murmurs, lifting his head from the pillow to kiss her. It’s gentle and brief and then he’s gone, back on his pillow._

_She shakes her head at him fondly. “You’re not serious_ enough _. You could be the best in the world, Percy; if you pushed yourself. If you took yourself more seriously.” She pokes him in the chest. “Number one isn’t a pipedream.”_

_Percy rolls his eyes at her and leans over to kiss her neck. “I’m already number one.”_

_“Oh yeah?” She wraps her arms around his shoulders as he rolls on top of her again. “What's that at then?”_

_He kisses her jaw, chin, mouth, cheek. “Number one in the world at making Annabeth Chase orgasm.”_

_Annabeth laughs, tilting her head back and baring her throat to him. He kisses and kisses and kisses her skin, hitting a ticklish spot which she laughs at, instinctively cringing away. Percy sees her weakness and kisses that spot again, over and over until she’s laughing and swatting at him._

_“God - stop!” she laughs, pushing at his shoulders and grabbing his face between her hands to pull his mouth away from her neck._ _“You’re a menace.”_

_He grins. “Thought I was world number one potential.”_

_“I changed my mind. You’re gonna aspire to be a ball boy.”_

_He dips his head to kiss her cheek again, sweet and soft. “As long as I’m your ball boy.”_

_She feels warm all the way through at his words. Inwardly, her heart thumps and her spine shivers and she’s smiling all over. Outwardly, she rolls her eyes and drags him back in for another kiss._

_They spend the rest of the morning fooling around in bed, wrapped up in one another’s arms, exchanging lazy words and kisses. Far away from the reality of the world outside that hotel room._

Annabeth hadn’t realised the words had stuck. Hadn't realised she'd actually had an impact on him. But he's made changes, he's pushing himself and believing in himself and fighting for this.

The first thing she feels is an insurmountable swell of pride in her chest. She closes her hands over her sternum and presses down, trapping the feeling there. She lies down and presses and presses down.

This might be enough, she thinks. It might just be enough.

* * *

 

The tie around his neck is pinching and tight. Percy slides two fingers beneath his collar to loosen it as casually as he can whilst feigning interest in the conversation around him.

He wishes it didn’t have to be feigned or forced so damn hard. This is all usually a lot easier. He doesn’t have to fake enthusiasm or grasp for mild conversation with vague acquaintances. But everything feels slightly far off, as if he’s contained in a bubble. He strains to focus on what the group around him are discussing: him, he thinks.

“It’s so wonderful to see you playing so well.” The words are accentuated by a non-patronising smile over a glass of champagne and several blinks in Percy’s direction.

He manages a nod and smile of thanks.

Grover, like an apparated saint, pats his shoulder. “He’s a machine. Gonna kick my ass in the final.”

Percy laughs. “It’ll be the most iconic match of the year.”

“Of the decade!”

And like Grover has loosened the key stone, Percy’s tension crumbles just like that. He eases into the conversation and allows the gentle stabs at his pride to go mostly unchallenged. He allows several compliments to stroke his ego and shakes most of them off with a self-derisive comment. It’s easy and familiar and he’s not thinking about Annabeth at all.

Not one bit.

He’s not thinking about how maybe she was right about this game they play. So many people have commented on how well he’s playing, how focused he is, how this seems like his real breakthrough year, and he’s got what it takes to be number one. He’s playing better now without any distractions, without confusion and over thinking and wondering whether she wants to spend the night in his room or hers. It’s just simpler without emotions involved; easier to focus on what he wants.

And he wants to win.

God, he’s never wanted to win so badly in his life. It’s never felt so within reach, so deserved. He feels like he has earned this; he’s never worked so hard towards something, never been so single mindedly focused on winning a tournament.

He's not thinking about how Annabeth was the first to tell him that he could be number one and now he's so close to reaching that potential.

In fact he's working so vehemently hard to not think about her that when he first sees her from across the room, his gaze almost slides right by. But it doesn't of course, it catches and screeches like a record and he's left staring at her.

Annabeth is wearing a long dark blue dress that clings to her chest and waist and hips and thighs, leaving a long V of her chest and her arms bare and glistening a little under the lights. Her hair is tied back, exposing her face in all of its familiar beauty. Familiar and familiar and yet entirely distant. She might be a stranger for how far away she looks, all composed and politely interested in conversation around her.

Percy watches her openly for several moments - it could be hours, he’s unsure - and notices the way Jason subtly corrals her from group to group, how Piper murmurs in her ear before they join a new conversation. He notices the pull of Annabeth’s strings, the careful choreography of her every interaction. In juxtaposition to her untamed irritation and annoyance in press interviews, she’s collected and charming.

For all her calmness he could imagine the last eight months never happened.

And then she looks up. And looks up, and looks up. And she catches his eye and he wonders how he could have doubted they ever happened. The facade - which he now realises was a facade - falls away as if it’s been obliterated and she’s standing, bare, before him. There are too many emotions flitting across her face for him to figure out but one he can see as clear as day is hurt. _Hurt_.

As if he's the one who left.

Emotions battle through him at the distressed look of her, including a need to comfort her, to hold her cheeks between his palms and kiss her forehead until that expression is replaced by something happier. He angrily pushes that thought away because she doesn’t want that, does she? She doesn’t want him to comfort her or be there for her, she’d made that clear from the beginning. And he had overstepped, so she had ended things.

But now here she is staring at him like her heart is cracking in two and he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel. She _left_ , she ended things because she didn’t want him, didn’t love him. But that knowledge is contrasting so sharply with what he’s seeing in front of him that Percy has to break eye contact and flee the room. He needs air and space and a moment to figure out what the hell is going on inside his chest.

He turns on his heel and shrugs Grover’s hand off his shoulder as he bolts for the exit.

* * *

 

He’s gone. Whipped out of sight before she has a chance to move and all Annabeth can hear is her pulse crashing in her ears and all she can see is the hurt and anger on Percy’s face. She can’t stop the carousel of words in her head: _your fault, your fault, your fault_.

Jason is saying her name, she looks at him but the energy she’d previously had to speak to these suits has dissipated and she’s left feeling heavy and lethargic. She shakes her head at him and shrugs his hand off her shoulder.

“I’m sorry, I need to get some air.”

“Annabeth.”

She waves him off and makes for the exit. “I’m fine, I just need…”

Annabeth doesn’t finish, just keeps walking through doors and down corridors until she’s outside. The cool evening air is a fresh balm to her skin but without the bustle of the party her pulse only thunders louder in her ears. She takes a few deep breaths and starts walking down the path spiralling out before her. The event is being held on the tournament grounds so she knows the route to the practice courts well. They are conveniently open, probably for the insomniacs among them to utilise their nights with practicing.

The mesh of the gate is cold against her palm, biting into her skin as she pushes it aside. The air fills with crickets and distant wails of sirens from the city. Quiet finally seeps into her eardrums and as Annabeth removes her shoes and pads barefoot across the court, she feels her heart settle a little in her chest. There’s nothing like coming home.

She stops in front of the net and leans against it, pinching the white runner between her thumbs and fingers. Then she turns and sits with her back to it, letting it bear a little of her weight as she tips her head up to the sky. A few stars blink at her through the light pollution of the city.

She thinks it might be five minutes before Piper finds her there, head still tipped to the sky as she marvels at how she managed to break two hearts after working so hard to protect her own.

“You’re a hard girl to find,” Piper says as she sits down next to her. The net bounces as she leans back, Annabeth rocks with it.

Piper is silent for several moments and as the silence creeps back in around them, Annabeth can tell Piper’s working herself up to say something big. Annabeth braces herself.

“When are you gonna stop letting your mom ruin your life, Annabeth.” And it’s not angry or accusing, just sad.

It’s also not what she had expected Piper to say.

Annabeth draws her knees up to her chest and cups her hands over her kneecaps. She rests her temple against her knuckles as she looks at Piper.

“I thought I had.”

Piper frowns. “Did you tell him about her?”

Annabeth shrugs and looks away, rolling her head so that her knuckles press into her forehead. She had told Percy the bare minimum about her mother. He had known the public story already: that Annabeth’s mother had managed and coached her until she was seventeen years old, and then she hadn’t.

She hadn’t told him why she’d made that change. She hadn’t elaborated on the complicated relationship she’d had with her mother; how her youthful desperation to please and make her mother proud had become infected with exhaustion and resentment.

Annabeth had been brought up mostly by her mother, having been vaguely aware of a father and step-mother and two half-brothers in San Francisco but never having contact and never thinking she needed it. Her mom was always enough, she always filled up her time with practice and meetings with sponsors. So much so that Annabeth had a hard enough time finishing her homework, never mind think about reaching out to her other family.

What Annabeth didn’t realise for years was that her mom had made her think she didn’t need anything else: just her and her tennis career. Friends didn’t matter, her dad didn’t matter, even schoolwork was less important. Slowly, she had been able to carve her own way out of that life, but she’s fully aware of the burrows her mother’s influence engraved into her rationale.

After another long moment of silence, Annabeth lifts her head to look at Piper again. “Is it bad that I miss her? Sometimes.”

She expects Piper to look a little angry, and she does, but mostly she looks sad.

“No, Annabeth. It’s normal; she’s your mom. She’s also the devil in human form, but she’s still your mom.”

“She wasn’t that bad.”

Now Piper does look outraged. “ _Annabeth_ . When I met you, you were a bulimic insomniac. You were collapsing every other day from exhaustion and had nose bleeds after almost every match. And you were _sixteen_ . She was an emotionally abusive bitch. You’re allowed to miss her, but you are _not_ allowed to defend her.”

“Okay, okay. I know.”

Piper bumps her shoulder. “You don’t need her.”

Annabeth takes a deep breath and reminds herself that she believes that. “I know.”

Piper wraps her arm around Annabeth’s shoulder and tugs her against her side gently. Annabeth slowly succumbs.

“You know,” Piper says softly, “we’re not going anywhere. Jason, Chiron, and I.”

Annabeth swallows. “I know that.”

“Do you? Because I think there might be a bit of you that thinks we’re gonna disappear as soon as you lose a few tournaments. As soon as you stop being your best at this game.”

Annabeth sighs. Because that’s it, isn’t it. That’s the ugly truth of it: that Annabeth has been waiting for the day they would all leave her too; because what reason would they have to stay? If she lost a tournament or choked or injured herself or just wasn’t good enough any more. That’s the real reason she can’t let anyone in. Especially not Percy, who could carry her whole heart in his hands and tear it apart if he wanted to. (She knows, somewhere inside her shattered mind, she _knows_ he doesn’t have the capability to do that. But it’s a molehill next to the mountain of her insecurities.)

“We’re not your mom, Annabeth,” Piper says, and it’s like a balm to her wounds.

Annabeth leans against her friend’s shoulder and lets her words wrap around her like a comforter, a real, tangible thing. And after a whole minute of silence, of letting the words comfort and forgive and allow Annabeth to feel safe and loved. She shifts her head a little to make sure Piper can hear her when she murmurs, “You’re my best friend, you know.”

Piper squeezes her shoulder. “And you’re mine, Chase.”

* * *

 

Annabeth’s sneakers squeak furiously against the surface of the court as she sprints for the ball. But it’s too far for her and it sails past the reach of her racquet to the disappointed sighs of the crowd. Bad luck, you could say. But it isn’t. She’s been one step behind from the first serve and has been eating her opponent’s dust for the best part of two sets.

It’s hard to watch her like this. For so long, Percy has watched Annabeth Chase play and has been in complete and utter awe. Every shift of her feet and swing of her racquet has been a move calculated three shots beforehand. Now she is lagging and unfocused, like the fire inside of her has been extinguished.

“This seems unhealthy,” Grover’s voice is covered by a cheer from the crowd as Annabeth secures a rare point. He joins Percy in his secluded spot, leaning against the railing and sending Percy a disapproving look before casting his gaze towards Annabeth and her opponent.

Percy lets out a sigh through his nose. “Guess I can’t help myself.”

He sees Grover glance at him and away from the corner of his eye but Percy keeps his eyes on the match, which is still going abysmally.

“You can say I told you so anytime,” Percy mutters after a few seconds.

“You know I’m not gonna do that, Perce.”

Annabeth loses another point and she’s three games down with only one more chance to bring things back now. Percy can’t watch it any more, but he can’t quite bear to leave either, so he turns his back to the court and leans against the rails instead.

“Is this what I did to her? I ruined her?”

Grover looks over at him with a frown. “Don’t be stupid. Percy, she’s playing like crap because she’s distracted. She’s tired. She’ll come back from this. You didn’t _ruin_ her because you fell in love with her.”

Percy has known, for quite some time, that he loves Annabeth, but hearing Grover say the words feels strangely exposing in a way he hadn’t anticipated. He hunches his shoulders and resists the urge to rub his chest as a strange ache burns through it.

“If she’d never met me then she’d be winning this tournament. She would have won Wimbledon and Cincinnati too.”

Grover shrugs nonchalantly. “Possibly. And you might not have a fucked knee, but what good does thinking about that do you?”

Percy shakes his head. “She told me from the beginning that she didn’t want anything serious. When I saw her the other night at the party I was so mad because she was looking at me like I’d broken _her_ heart. Like all of this is my fault, but maybe....” He sighs, dragging a hand over his face. “Maybe she’s right. We agreed to tell each other if we developed feelings and I didn’t.”

Grover doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “Well, did _she_?”

Percy looks at him, Grover is still facing the court so he watches his profile as he asks, “Did she what?”

“Tell you when she was developing feelings.”

The truth is that no, she didn’t but in all honesty, Percy hasn’t been thinking much about her feelings for him. He’d just always felt his own heart tripping over and over while Annabeth remained composed and sure footed. So it naturally hadn’t crossed his mind that she should have been honest about her feelings too. Or that there were even feelings for her to be honest about.

At his silence, Grover looks at him and puts his hand on Percy’s shoulder. “You can hardly tell me you think she’s indifferent to you.”

Percy has to look away. His eyes fall on the court again as Annabeth serves an ace. Her form is perfect, but it’s not going to be enough to win this match.

Next to him, Grover sighs. “Listen, I’m not saying this to place blame on either one of you. You’re kind of both to blame. But, Percy?”

Grover’s tone informs Percy that he’s waiting for him to look at him, so he does, reluctantly. “Yeah?”

“I also think you’ve both become better players and better people because of each other.”

Percy frowns and drops Grover’s gaze. He certainly recognises how his own game has improved and can pinpoint directly on the conversations with Annabeth which are responsible for those improvements. But he struggles to reverse that.

The final point of the game proves his theory to be correct. Cruelly, it’s a double fault by Annabeth which exiles her from the rest of the tournament. Just like that.

Tennis truly is a brutal sport.

Percy turns to Grover and shakes his head. “Tell me how I’ve made her life better?”

Grover shakes his head. “She’s tired and distracted, Percy. But look at her. She looks like someone with a lot less weight on her shoulders, if you ask me.”

Percy looks down at the court as Annabeth crosses to the net and shakes her opponent’s hand and then the umpire’s. The look of disappointment on her face is visible from space but Grover is right. There’s something lighter about her. Like perhaps the whole world isn’t over because she lost; like she isn’t going to lose everything else because of it.

Percy’s mind whirrs. He wonders how he hadn’t noticed that before.

Both players are packing their stuff up to leave the court and before Percy can stop himself, he’s catching Grover’s shoulder with his palm with a “see you later.” and jogging into the depths of the stadium to find the press room where he knows Annabeth will be giving a short interview.

An unnerving need comes over him to hear her voice, to re-solidify her as Annabeth and not a player viewed from far away. Plus, he’s curious about what questions she might be asked.

Percy turns corner after corner and is worryingly out of breath by the time he finds the press conference rooms. A head ducked into three rooms is what it takes before he finds her. She’s sitting next to Piper at a short white table with two dozen suits with microphones and cameras shouting at her. She looks calm.

Percy hovers by the door, hidden from her view by a fuzzy microphone in the sea of reporters between them. It feels like a strange metaphor for their relationship.

“What did you make of Hazel Levesque? This is her first pros tournament and she showed you what for out there.”

“She’s fierce.” Annabeth laughs and they laugh with her. “In all seriousness, she’s a great player with a long career ahead of her. Though next time we meet, I’m gonna have to put her in her place.”

Annabeth’s smirk is enough to lighten her words and have the group of reporters chuckle along pleasantly. Then more hands are raised and Piper is pointing at a woman in the front row.

“What do you think went wrong for you out there today? You were certainly lagging behind on many of the points, do you think it could be a question of age?”

It’s point blank rude and Annabeth’s smirk sharpens like a knife, though she doesn’t launch any daggers just yet. “Well I may have a few years on Hazel but I don’t think I’m quite ready for a walker yet. I was distracted today and didn’t play to my best. But don’t go retiring me yet.”

Percy feels an odd thrill of pride tickle in his chest. She’s….enjoying herself. Instead of headbutting the awkward - and often rude - questions, she’s embracing them, turning them around and teasing the reporters. She’s having her own way.

Was this his influence?

He’d told her countless times when she’d asked how he copes with the press that it’s all about taking it on the chin. It’s not personal, no matter how personal they make it seem. They’re just asking questions they get paid to ask and it’s completely up to you how you answer them, so you may as well have a little fun with it.

He’s definitely proud.

He’s almost certainly still in love with her.

“Speaking of focus,” the next reporter asks, diverting Percy’s attention, “there’s been a lot of stuff about you and Percy Jackson in the press lately. Has that had anything to do with the change in your game?”

At the sound of his name, Percy shrinks back into the shadows, fully anticipating a spotlight to beam on him. It doesn’t, but he remains more hidden than before. It means he can no longer see Annabeth when she answers, so he listens intently to her voice. He’s expecting a full dismissal, perhaps a light joke to lift the suddenly tight atmosphere.

That’s not what he gets.

“Ah, I uh...wondered when that would come up.” She takes a breath. “You’re correct in saying that Percy and I were involved in a…relationship.” There’s a scuffle of flashing camera bulbs and an adjustment of microphones. “But I don’t want to give the impression that what happened between us left a negative impact on me. I’m thankful for what happened between us and I can honestly say that I wish him the best and all the luck for this, and every future, tournament.”

Percy’s heart is jack-hammering in his chest. He has to focus on the next question in order to hear it over the sound of his own breathing.

“So why was it that he ended things?”

“It’s flattering that you assume I was dumped, thanks.” Annabeth’s voice has returned to the old familiar snap and Percy almost feels relieved. Then it softens again. “I don’t want to give the impression that he was at fault though. The fault was entirely mine.”

What does that mean?

She must regret having let things develop so far, as he’d suspected. Maybe he was wrong about her having had any feelings for him at all. It had been easier to believe the existence of them when Grover had been insisting upon them.

“I won’t be answering any more questions on the matter,” Annabeth finishes tidily.

“Any more questions?” Piper asks.

“Should we expect to see you at the China Open in October?”

“Oh yes. You should expect to see me in the finals.”

The whole room shuffles and Percy assumes Annabeth is standing up to leave, having tolerated enough questions for one day. He takes it as his cue to leave and hurries down the hallway before his presence is detected.

He finds a closet to hideout in and process the last five minutes, his heart feeling strange and heavy in his chest. He thinks he’s more confused than ever.

* * *

 

The last time Percy made it to the finals of the US Open was two years ago. He managed to hold his own until the fourth set where he’d completely choked and gone down in a blaze of shame. He feels a lifetime away from the kid who’d played and lost in that final. Although only two years have passed, things have changed for him in irrevocable ways.

He’s not gonna choke this time, dammit.

“Are you certain about this, Percy?” his mom’s worried voice crackles a little due to the poor reception he gets on his phone in the basement changing rooms of the stadium. “I don’t want to ruin your chance to win, you’ve worked so hard for this.”

Percy hates himself a little for ever making his mom feel like she’s a curse on his game. “Mom. I want you here. I want to walk out and see you in the player’s box and when I win this match I want to be able to find you straight away to hug you.”

She laughs a little. “Well, alright. I want that too, sweetheart. If you’re absolutely sure.”

“I’ve never been more sure about anything. I’m sorry I made you miss so many games.”

He hears her small sigh through the speaker. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“True.”

There’s a tap, tap, tap behind him and Percy turns around to see Grover with his fist raised to a locker and an apologetic smile on his face. He jerks his head over his shoulder, indicating that Percy needs to get off the phone.

“Sorry, ma. I gotta go.”

“Okay, sweetheart. I love you. Good luck.”

“Love you too.”

He hangs up and shoves his phone into his kit bag before heaving it onto his shoulder. Grover immediately takes it off him when Percy reaches him and they fall into stride with one another.

“You ready for this, man?” Grover asks him as they climb the stairs to the tunnel.

Percy puffs out a breath. “Yeah. I am.”

As they enter the tunnel Percy’s opponent, Luke Castellan, is already there, he meets Percy’s eye and smirks. Percy kinda hates the guy. Once, a long time ago, he’d admired him enormously. Then he had met him and learned that he was, in fact, an asshole with zero sportsmanship. He’d had a pretty rough childhood from what Percy had heard about him - one of the reasons he’d once looked up to him so much to begin with - but no amount of bad parenting excused yelling at a fourteen year old ball boy for not passing him a towel when he needed it.

The guy really needs to loosen up, in Percy’s opinion.

“Do me a favour and kick his ass,” Grover muttered, handing over Percy’s bag.

“You got it, man.”

Luke casts them a derisive smirk before focusing straight ahead again, adjusting his headphones as if to emphasise how little concern he has for Percy’s presence.

Percy has no qualms about kicking his ass.

He can feel the thrumming energy of the crowd now, talking excitedly as one buzzing voice. His heart crashes in his chest. He can hardly believe he is here, in the finals of the US Open, about to play his once idol while his mom sits in the player’s box box.

His dream is coming true and all he can feel is a twist of nausea in his stomach.

As they walk up the ramp together, the buzz of the crowds is overwhelmed by Percy’s pounding heartbeat. Then he’s out in the blinding sunshine and he’s hit by a wall of sound as the crowd roars at him. He can’t quite believe that all of these people are here to see him play. A glance at Luke tells him that his opponent appears unfazed by the whole thing; of course, this is hardly his first final.

Percy swallows down the lump in his throat and walks over to his chair, dumping his bag down and pulling out his racquet.

The following minutes are a strange, jittering blur before the umpire calls them up for the coin toss. Luke calls heads and it lands tails. It’s Percy’s first serve; the sun is to the right of the court, leaving them both at an equal disadvantage. He walks to the back of the court, feeling the sun hot on the back of his neck, and accepts three fresh tennis balls from the ball girl. He bounces them, throws one back, pockets another, and keeps the third in his hand. He rubs his thumb over the familiar fuzzy texture and takes a deep breath.

He’s barely surprised when he hears Annabeth’s voice in his head, telling him to _breathe. Just breathe_.

The world slows down. He bounces, once, twice. Tosses the ball high, and follows with his racquet, serving the ball hard and fast cross court into the box. Luke returns and then they’re battling back and forth; sharp, powerful rallies which leave Percy feeling elated and exhausted.

Luke is a whirlwind of ferocity and he’s launching everything at Percy. Before he knows it, he’s two sets down to one and his knee is killing him and he can’t quite catch his breath before the next serve. Luke needs to win this set and he’s won the match. He needs to break Percy’s serve and hold his own and that’s it. Percy’s out.

Thunder rumbles overhead, crackling and ominous, as Percy bounces the ball on the asphalt and breathes in deeply. It fizzles through his chest as a flash of lightning bursts overhead. He lifts his head, watching Luke shift his weight on the other side of the court, and tosses the ball to serve.

The rain starts half way through the game and within seconds Percy can barely see the other side of the court. Luke hits the ball wide and the umpire is calling for the game to be suspended, pushing out of his chair as the heavens open above them.

For a moment, Percy just stands and lets it soak him, feeling each droplet hammer against his skin. He’s snapped out of it by Grover calling his name from the side of court. He runs towards him and follows him into shelter, not questioning where they’re going until he’s dripping water onto the tiled floor of the changing rooms.

“It’s not over yet,” Grover says.

Percy heaves out a sigh, feeling exhausted. He drops his racquet and scrubs his hands through his wet hair, spitting droplets everywhere.

“Feels like it.”

“Well, it isn’t.”

Except this isn’t Grover’s voice.

It’s Annabeth’s.

Percy turns around. And there she is, looking so small and so different and so familiar. She’s wearing a grey sweatshirt which looks a few sizes too big; the sleeves are rolled up around her wrists and the hem falls well past the waistband of her jeans. Her face is a mixture of emotions he can’t quite make out. Percy is reminded of the night of the gala when he’d fled from her eye contact and the expression he couldn’t understand.

This feels like the same and a million miles away. She looks so different from that night; she looks like the Annabeth he’d become accustomed to seeing pouring over her notes when she couldn’t sleep at three am. The Annabeth who opened the door to him at six am, barely woken up but pulling inside anyway. She looks beautiful, and it cracks his heart in two.

He’s angry with the part of himself that immediately wants to wrap her in his arms. He clenches his jaw and holds onto that anger. It’s better than whatever other emotion might decide to surface.

“What are you doing here?”

Annabeth flinches a little. “I….I came to apologise.”

Uncertainty flickers through him. He crosses his arms and digs his fingernails into his palms, desperate to hold his composure. From the corner of his eye, he notices Grover slip away; he’s not sure if he feels relieved or panicked to be alone with her.

Annabeth bites her lip and makes fleeting eye contact before dropping her gaze again. Then she takes a breath, like she’s steeling herself.

“I wanted to wait, until after you had played. I didn’t want to interfere with your game any more than I already had. But I was watching you play and...I just felt like I had to talk to you now. I’m sorry if I was wrong.”

He doesn’t really understand. But before he can contemplate opening his mouth to ask her what the hell is going on, she’s talking again.

“I’m so so sorry, Percy. For how I handled things between us, and for how I left them. You deserve so much more than that and I’m sorry.”

“I knew-” He clears his throat, not quite meeting her eye. “I knew what I was getting into, Annabeth. We had an agreement.”

She’s shaking her head. “That agreement was bullshit. I fell in love with you months ago and I let things carry on, pretending like they were fine and emotions weren’t involved but that was...wrong. That was so wrong. Then things caught up to me and instead of just talking to you, I panicked. And I left. And that was wrong and Percy, I am so sorry.”

“Just, stop.” Percy’s heart is beating tantrums in his chest. “Stop apologising, please.”

She looks taken aback but Percy is just standing there, reeling at her words. At the realisation that his feelings were reciprocated. _Are_ reciprocated. That she...she loves him.

She loves him.

The past 8 months swarm around him. Collections of moments which had made him wonder, made him question and hope and dream. Moments which had solidified his own feelings for her; that this whole game of pretending they were casual was just that: a game. And that, in reality, they were falling in love with each other. Only he’d doubted and doubted her feelings towards him, assuming her indifference.

He thinks about nights spent curled around one another, easy back-and-forth texts, phone calls from different countries, complaints about time-zones. He thinks about nights spent printing affection into one another’s skin. He thinks about racing one another down streets in Paris and sneaking into broom closets just to be close to each other and blow jobs in restaraunt bathrooms. He thinks about footsie under the table and lazy breakfast in bed and aching to hold her hand in public.

As Percy thinks about all of this, Annabeth watches him with that little furrow between her eyebrows and her lips bitten between her teeth. And Percy can’t quite bear it any more.

“You love me?” he asks her.

Annabeth blinks and nods. “Very much.”

Those two words are carried across the space between them and wrapped around his heart like a bandaid. Percy breathes, like he’s bursting from the water, like his chest has been constricted and is now free.

He can’t stand still any more so he walks over to her and wraps his arms around her, the way he’d wanted to the first moment he’d heard her voice. Annabeth wraps her arms around his waist, linking her fingers together at the small of his back and Percy just feels _safe_ , he feels claimed in the most intimate way. As she stutters out a breath against his neck, he wonders if she’d missed holding him as much as he’d missed holding her.

And he realises, as she squeezes him and smiles against his shoulder, that she must have. He realises that this is what it feels like to be held by someone who loves you. And for a few moments, he lets himself live in this moment. Lets her hold him and sways them from side to side as he breathes her in and remembers this feeling, lets it soak into his skin and tattoo his heart.

After those moments have passed, Percy withdraws a little, careful not to dislodge her arms. He pushes her hair behind her ears and holds her cheeks between his hands, and he looks at the love of his life smiling up at him. Then he kisses her. And it’s not tongue and passion and desperation. It’s a firm press of lips, it’s smiles and familiarity and a promise of so many more to come.

It’s a little bit of tongue.

Annabeth laughs as he tips his forehead against hers and she nuzzles his nose gently.

“I missed you,” he says, allowing himself to be vulnerable before her, still nervous about doing so.

She kisses him again, quick and sure. “I missed you too.”

“I’m still kinda mad,” he says.

She nods, looking slightly sobered. “Understandable. We have a lot to talk about, but not yet.”

Percy blinks and looks around them, remembering where they are. “Oh, fuck.”

Annabeth pulls out of the hug but Percy reaches for her hand, not quite willing to let go yet. She smiles and pulls him to sit down next to her on the bench. “You have a match to win,” she tells him.

He drags his hand over his face. “I don’t think I can beat him.”

“Of course you can. You’re a better player than he is, you’re just getting inside your own head too much.”

He blusters out a breath, making a _pffbtt_ sound. “He’s better than me.”

“Um. No the fuck he’s not. Percy, this is _your_ game.”

But he’s shaking his head, feeling all of the exhaustion seep back into his bones. “He’s too fast, his serve is unstoppable.”

“You’ve returned ninety percent of them.”

He sighs. “My knee is killing me.”

“Play through the pain.”

“I’m tired, Annabeth.”

She elbows him. “You’re letting yourself feel tired. You’re not old, Percy. Quit quitting.”

He huffs out a laugh. “How do I do that then?”

She raises her eyebrows. “Just go back to the start, okay? You _know_ how he plays - he’s all force and cross court serves. You’ve got to start disrupting that, bring him to the net, make him run. You play better at the net anyway.”

Percy looks at her frowny, determined face and falls in love all over again. He kisses her because he can. “I love you,” he tells her.

She grins at him. “I love you too. But stop it. You need to focus.”

“Fuck, okay. So bring him forward.”

“Yes. He gets panicky when he doesn’t have enough room and that’s when he bottles it. He’s gonna try and get the rally going long again but you’re good at ball placement, so focus on that. Don’t let him psych you out.”

“Percy?” Grover interrupts them, looking apologetic as he leans against the doorway. “They’re calling for a restart.”

Annabeth stands up with him and smoothes her hands over his cheeks. “Kiss his ass, baby.”

He grins at her. “You’ll be there?”

She nods. “I’ll be there.”

* * *

 

Annabeth has a moment when she thinks she’s not actually going to get to watch this match. She’s about three seconds from drop kicking the security guard blocking her path when Grover saves her ass. He had escorted Percy out of the changing rooms and she’d not hung around, desperate as she had been to get into the stands.

Perhaps she should have waited and she wouldn't be contemplating assaulting a six foot brick wall of a security guard. She has always been a bit impulsive.

“Annabeth.” Grover calls, like a miracle. “There you are.”

She and the security guard watch Grover approach at a jog. His curly hair bounces up and down over his forehead, and so does the ID badge does against his chest. From the corner of her eye, she sees Security puff down a little at that sight of formality.

“She’s with me,” Grover insists, waving his badge around. “She’s my plus one.”

Now isn’t the appropriate time to point out that they are at the US Open and not a wedding, but the thought runs through Annabeth’s mind anyway. As Grover reaches her side, they both look up at the security guard expectantly. Behind his wide shoulders, the crowd roars to life, greeting the players back onto the court. Over the security guard’s shoulder, she can see metal railings which hold the crowd in and a patch of burning blue sky; a bare canvas, as if the clouds had been blown away like spilt flour. Annabeth inches forward, her whole body gravitating towards the noise of the crowd, and he shifts to block her view.

“You can’t enter without a pass,” he says, having regained his stance.

Annabeth sighs heavily. “I’m already _in_ the stadium.”

That makes him frown. “How did you get in without a pass?”

Ah. Well, that had involved an actual real life bribe in the form of a $20 which had been through the wash in the back pocket of her jeans and a selfie for someone’s daughter.

“I had my pass,” Annabeth says, diplomatically. “And then I left it in the bathroom, like I already explained, but when I went back, someone had already taken it.”

“Someone’s probably handed it in then, you need to go pick it up.”

Annabeth is reaching boiling point. “But I don’t have _time_ ,” she grits through her teeth. “They’re playing _now_.”

There’s no way she can miss this game. No possible universe in which she doesn’t watch Percy Jackson win his first US Open. Few things have felt so viscerally important before. She’s missed too much already, she can’t miss this too. Not now that she finally has him.

“Look, what if she takes my pass?” Grover says and they both turn to stare at him.

“I...suppose,” the security guard starts and before he can finish, Grover is yanking his pass off and thrusting it into Annabeth’s hands. She stares at it for a second or two before meeting his eyes.

Annabeth doesn’t know Grover very well at all, only through Percy’s affectionate remarks and a few brief encounters at social events. But she makes a decision right there and then that he’s going to be a close friend. She surges forward to wrap her arms around him.

“I love you right now,” she says, releasing him.

He blushes and rubs the back of his neck. It’s incredibly endearing. “The guy you love is in _there_. Go.”

Annabeth can’t stop the grin taking over her face. She grips his shoulder and tells him sincerely, “Thank you.”

And then she’s marching past the security guard and running up the steps. She’s hit by a wall of heat and light and sound; a true assault to the senses. A point has been scored, but she can’t tell who by. It’s Luke’s serve, she establishes as she watches him pull out a ball from his pocket and bounce it twice, scowling across court. Her gaze flies over to the other side of the court to find Percy and she lets out a breath when she sees him.

He looks vibrant. Like the sun has been bottled inside him.

His hair sticks to his forehead where it falls over his sweatband and his face is shiny with sweat and his shirt clings to his chest and he is beautiful. He's so fucking beautiful. As she takes a seat on the steps, Annabeth’s mind flashes back to the morning she watched him play after they first hooked up. She feels a million miles away from that person.

She remembers Piper’s words of warning: _don’t break him_.

Annabeth thinks she might have. She might have broken herself a little too. But she remembers Percy’s arms around her in the changing rooms downstairs. She remembers his words: _I missed you, I love you, you’ll be there?_

She’s going to be here for the rest of her goddamn life. There’s no way she’s ever leaving him. No way she’s missing this, him, them. When Percy’s arms were around her, she’d felt more at home than she had in her whole transient life. She’d felt safe and known and comforted.

She can't imagine a universe in which they don't exist together.

Annabeth takes a seat on the steps as Luke serves and the breath she gulps in doesn't leave her body until the point is won by Percy in a stunning cross court backhand. His fist pumps the air and the crowd laps it up. She can't remember the last time she was this immersed in a crowd. She feels connected, joined together in their cheers and their gasps and their edge of seat, clenched teeth suspense. It's invigorating.

When Percy breaks Luke’s serve, winning the set, Annabeth jumps to her feet along with everyone else and yells Percy’s name. It's lost in the roar of the crowd but as the players take their seats next to the umpire, directly opposite where Annabeth is standing, he looks up and sees her.

She's grinning so wide her cheeks hurt and he smiles back, nodding his head once. She nods and taps her temple, indicating for him to focus and read his notes again before the restart. He does and she takes a seat again, ignoring the stares from the people in seats on either side of her.

The players are called up again all too soon to play the deciding set for the match. As they pass each other in front of the umpire’s chair, Annabeth doesn't miss the way Luke shoves his shoulder against Percy’s. Percy turns with the movement and watches after Luke for a few beats. He looks surprised.

Annabeth is outraged.

She has to clench her hands into fists at her sides to prevent her from hurling abuse down at the court. She settles instead with a glare as Luke takes residence on his side of court, shifting his weight as he watches Percy opposite him. She drags her gaze away from Luke again to find Percy and there it is. The Jackson Shuffle.

Annabeth thinks she might have started falling in love with him when she first saw that shuffle. It certainly makes her fall in love with him all over again now.

Percy bounces the ball twice, tosses it high and follows after with the racquet. The ball lands firmly in the outside corner of the service box and Luke isn't fast enough to return it. Ace. And just like that, he's already won the game. He digs for every point. Diving and sprinting for Luke’s smashes. Throwing himself across court and wincing whenever he misses. He’s not playing against Luke anymore, he’s playing against perfection. And it's not as though Percy is playing like a new man, he's just playing as himself, freed.

He holds his first serve and breaks Luke’s but the third game consists of long drawn out rallies and too many long cross court volleys. Percy can’t keep the momentum of serving and just like that, Luke breaks him right back. As he walks to the back of the court, Percy scrubs his hands over his head, leaving his hair pointing in every direction. He looks shaken and pissed off. Annabeth wants to go to him and tell him to snap out of it. She wants to wrap her arms around him and comfort him and tell him off.

But she’s stuck in the stands, feeling as though she may as well be watching through a television screen.

“Come on, Percy,” she mutters under her breath. It isn’t enough.

Percy’s gaze across court is wildly intense. Annabeth can see the tension in his jaw from this far away and the whites of his knuckles as he grips his racquet. She hopes he can channel this into his game and not get distracted. Don’t choke.

Goddammit, Percy, do not choke.

Luke serves hard and fast directly into the net. Annabeth’s breath wooshes out of her. She watches as Percy frowns and spins his racquet in his hands, resuming his position on the base line. When Luke’s second serve hits the net, Annabeth finally looks over him and recognises the frazzled expression on his face. He’s shaken. Despite winning the last game, his cage has been rattled. Percy has to take advantage of this.

He does.

With a few more faults on Luke’s behalf and a number of beautifully placed shots on Percy’s, Luke’s serve is once again broken and Percy is winning the third and potentially deciding set of the tournament three games to two. Three more. He just has to win three more games and he’s won the US Open.

Percy serves the next game and Luke fights tooth and nail for it but ends up losing having only secured one point. Luke manages to fight harder in his next service game but Percy still breaks him, holding onto his lead.

This is the side of tennis Annabeth had forgotten she loves. Yes, tennis is a game without second chances, it’s a ride or die, all or nothing, once you’re out, you’re out game. But it’s also a game that switches around in a second. It’s a game that allows a player on their knees to come back fighting and win. It _is_ a game of second chances, in so many ways. If you’re willing to fight for it.

Annabeth thinks about watching the first set of this game on a tiny television screen in the lounge of her hotel and making a decision. She thinks about standing in front of Percy and telling him that she loves him, that she had missed him, and that he has absolutely everything it takes to win this. She thinks about his arms around her and his reciprocation of those feelings and she feels so damn lucky for her second chance.

She feels so damn lucky to be sitting right here in the stands as Percy locks eyes with her and returns her nod. So damn lucky to be part of this.

And it comes down to this; the deciding game of the deciding set of the US Open. It comes down to a handful of serves and too long rallies and a terrible call by the umpire. It comes down to deuce at three hours and twenty minutes of play. Percy serves, Luke returns with a drop shot, Percy flicks the ball back over the net and Luke returns it too long.

It comes down to this: the third Championship point of the match. Percy Jackson and his shuffle. Annabeth’s fingernails digging crescents into her palms. The court is _alive_ with tension and the umpire has to call for quiet three times before it is granted. Annabeth’s heart thunders on in her chest.

Percy tosses the ball high, his body bends and stretches and curves as he follows with his racquet. The ball flies over the net, landing squarely in the service box. Luke is there in an instant, returning it cross court. Percy drops it close to the net, dragging Luke forward. Luke makes it, forcing Percy to deflect the ball awkwardly away from his chest. Luke slams the ball down, presuming a win, but Percy scoops it up neatly. Luke has to scramble backwards and just about makes the shot as he’s running. Percy dives, makes the shot, it blows up chalk and Luke is two steps too slow. And just like that, Percy has won.

“Game, set, match, Jackson,” the umpire announces and the stadium erupts.

Percy drops to his knees, face in his hands, racquet abandoned.

Annabeth is on her feet, hands cupped over her mouth as she grins. Her chest aches with this feeling of joy, like the feeling is too big to hold inside of her body. Around her, the crowd is so loud it feels not only deafening but blinding. Her senses are overloaded and all she can do is watch Percy’s slumped figure slowly draw upright and shake Luke’s hand across the net before raising his hands to the crowd. He returns their applause, like they are the ones to be praised.

Then he is moving into the crowd. She watches him climb into his player’s box and embrace his mom and her heart swells with pride. Percy embraces an older man and a teenage girl who she has to assume are his step-father and little sister. Her smile only widens as he watches Percy with his family. She isn’t sure what happened for him to change his mind about his mom attending his games but she intends to ask him later.

Later, after she has held him and told him she’s proud of him and she loves him and she’s staying with him, no matter what. _Later_.

And then, blessedly, Percy carries on moving through the crowd towards her. Annabeth’s heart gallops against her rib cage and she laughs as Percy clambers over people’s laps and jumps the last few steps to get to her. Then he is finally here, arms wrapping around her and surrounding her and grounding her. He’s sweaty and panting and grinning like a fool and she knows her face holds a mirrored expression as she presses it against his neck.

“You did it,” she says.

Percy pulls back and looks at her, cradles her face between his hands and smiles at her like she gave him the whole world.

“I love you,” he says.

Something clicks inside of her.

“I love you too. I’m not going anywhere, i’m staying right here.”

Percy is shaking his head. “No you’re not. You’re going a long, long way.”

Annabeth can barely stand it anymore. She fists his shirt in her hand and kisses him. The crowd around them gets louder for a moment, and then it all fades away and she feels nothing but Percy. His arms around her waist, pulling her tightly against him, his damp hair falling against her forehead, his mouth pulling her apart and tying her up into knots.

She could spend the rest of her life wrapped up in this feeling; safe, known, sound.

And the best part is, she knows that she will.

 

_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you. For your patience and support and love. I ADORE this AU and am so grateful Sophii brought it into my life. I'm so sad it's nearly over but am so happy to share this beast of a final chapter with you all <3
> 
> It's not quite over yet though! We've got an epilogue coming your way which will be sufficiently fluffy :))


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, and for the last time, i apologise for the delay. i hope it's worth the wait.  
> i'm gonna be a bit more sappy in the end notes but for now, soph and i decided to dedicate this epilogue to [Teriza ❤️ ](http://percabeth-is-endless.tumblr.com)
> 
> [TWs for mentions of past emotional abuse and bulimia]
> 
>  
> 
> [xxx](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_tR5cCtGtE)

****_Oh you / And I_  
_Safe from the world / Though the world will try_  
But we can stay here / And laugh away the fear

_True love is so hard to find / and it’s right between your lips and mine_

* * *

 

 

**Six seconds**

Six seconds later, they still have their arms around each other, smiling too much for this to be considered kissing any more. Someone to their left wolf whistles particularly loudly and Percy can’t pretend that they’re not making out in front of thousands of people anymore. He breaks away from Annabeth and holds onto her hands instead as they both gaze around at the still erupting crowd.

This is for him. All of this noise and fuss and happiness. It's for him.

He's not sure when it will sink in.

Maybe later, after he's held that trophy, or after he's given his press interview, or after he's gone back to his hotel room and slept for several uninterrupted hours.

Maybe then. But for now, he looks at the love of his life and holds her face in his hands, thinking that he's holding the whole universe between his palms, and he kisses her again.

Because he can now, and that's possibly better than any trophy in the world.

* * *

 

**Six minutes**

The trophy is pretty fantastic. It has nothing on Annabeth’s warm cheeks, but the cool metal feels so solid and real and fucking incredible in his hands.

Percy mildly wishes he'd been able to change into some clean clothes, like he'd always admired Federer for doing, but he'd been too busy finding his family to have time for that.

So he stands in front of this enormous crowd in the clothes he won the US Open tournament in, and he lifts the trophy high above his head. Noise floods his ears in deafening volume and brings tears to his eyes.

This is his. He won this, he fought tooth and nail for this. His chest feels full with emotion as the crowds cheer for him endlessly.

Percy had always thought that playing the game had been all the thrill he needed. Winning tournaments is great and all, but he'd always played for playing. But this, this is something else. This is proof that he deserves to be here on this court, playing the greats. This is proof that he can excel at this game he loves so much.

Percy is overwhelmed with joy, his body is buzzing with euphoria. And he's hungry now. Hungry to keep winning more and more, because he knows he can.

* * *

 

**Six hours**

The party is a whirlwind of suits and dresses and champagne flutes and flashing cameras and Percy is, to say the least, a little overwhelmed. Everyone is here and everyone wants to talk to him. And while Percy prides himself on being somewhat of a media darling, this is perhaps too much even for him. Ideally, he would be having dinner with about ten of the people in this room.

(Ideally he'd be be doing something other than having dinner with only one person in this room.)

He feels like he hasn't seen Annabeth for hours. In reality, it can't have been more than twenty minutes. After those long weeks apart, every second away from her is painful.

They had arrived to the party separately and Percy had managed to get his arm around her waist before their names were being shouted for a photo. A moment of uncertainty passed where they'd exchanged looks, both unfamiliar with each other in this territory. But then Annabeth had tugged him closer and smiled, and Percy had smiled back so easily, relaxing into her side and turning to face the camera as several flashes went off.

That had been hours ago. They had been able to linger next to one another for much of the night, fingers linked as they sipped champagne and answered different questions. Percy had been the subject of a few speeches and he'd been forced into giving his own short address of thanks.

But eventually, they had been separated by Piper who whisked Annabeth away to talk to a representative from her main sponsor. Since then he's seen glimpses of her through the crowd and nothing more.

It almost feels worse than not having seen her at all tonight. Because she is there, in a long black dress looking like desire and she's just out of reach. And after all this time, all of the doubt and confusion and heartache, they've found their way back to each other only to be separated by a few hundred people in a slightly humid room. It seems impossible but Percy _misses_ her.

He feels like a hopeless romantic.

He must look it too, because Grover’s hand claps down on his shoulder a few moments later and he leans in close to say, “If you're very nice to me I could help you sneak out unnoticed.”

Percy looks at his best friend to find his gaze where Percy’s had been: across the room at Annabeth as she stands with a champagne flute in one hand and her other hand on the arm of an older man. (He isn't _that_ much older and Percy doesn't want to admit to the twinge of jealousy curling in his gut, so he pretends it isn't there.)

“I really do like you a lot,” he tells Grover.

Grover grins at him. “Nice enough. Go and get your girl, I'll cover for you.”

Percy squeezes his friend’s shoulder and wastes no more time slipping away from the group he had been vaguely involved with. He threads through the crowd until he reaches Annabeth. She spots him before anyone else in the group does and Percy's heart kicks up a little when she smiles at him, her expression impossibly soft. The rest of the group is made up of the older man who Percy definitely hadn't been jealous of, Piper, and another woman he vaguely recognises but can't remember where from.

They all notice him soon enough because Annabeth hasn't taken her eyes off him and she had evidently been the centre of their discussion. The older man turns and takes him in, his face cracking in two with a smile.

“Ah here he is, the man of the moment! Congratulations on the win, Mr Jackson. It was a truly riveting match.”

Percy shakes his hand. “Thank you so much, I appreciate it. I hate to be so rude, but would you mind if I steal Miss Chase?”

His smile is too rueful but Percy doesn't care how obvious he's being. He just wants Annabeth to himself. Preferably not wearing clothes, but he'll honestly be happy either way.

“Of course, of course.” He grasps Annabeth's hand between his much larger ones and kisses her cheek and Percy feels annoyed because he wants to be holding her hand and kissing her cheek. And then he feels ridiculous.

“I'll have Piper arrange a lunch,” Annabeth tells him, sounding earnest.

The other lady speaks up, her voice high pitched and giggly. “Oh and feel free to bring Percy along too.”

She's definitely had one too many drinks and her cheeks flush so Percy takes pity and throws her a bone.

“I'd hate to steal Annabeth’s sponsors away,” he says, grinning.

Annabeth scoffs. “Please. They have me, why would they need you?”

“Didn't you know, Annabeth? I'm charming and I just won the US Open.”

“Oh is that why we're here? I thought it was just an excuse to wear a pretty dress.”

“Well that is a very pretty dress.”

The _it would look better on my bedroom floor_ is unspoken but passed between them nonetheless.

Piper clears her throat. “Well, we don't want to keep you two.”

Annabeth's cheeks flush and it's impossibly endearing. Percy grins before he can stop himself. He holds out his hand and feels giddy when Annabeth threads her fingers through his. They excuse themselves with minimal embarrassment and walk closely together as they make for an exit. Annabeth's other hand holds onto his arm and the warmth of her body lined up next to his is enough to make Percy's brain feel fuzzy already. Anticipation buzzes through his veins as they sneak out through one of the doors and into the corridor.

They actually break into a run to get to the elevator and Annabeth hits the button with her fist before grabbing the lapels of his jacket and dragging him towards her. Percy's hands fly to her hips as their mouths press together, hot and sharp and hungry. She tastes like champagne and sex and Percy wants to devour her. He wants to shed every layer between them as soon as possible. The warmth of her already exposed skin is a delicious tease against his fingers and his tongue.

The elevator dings and the doors open to a mercifully empty car. They drag each other in and he crowds Annabeth up against the mirrored wall, breathing deep and fast as he moves into her space. Their kisses are frantic, rushed and full of sharp breaths and tugging hands and scattering heartbeats. Their hug in the changing rooms had been a comforting solace after so long apart, the words spoken and unspoken between them being of reassurance and comfort. Their tangled fingers at the party had been another touch of assurance. Now their touches are starved and desperate. He wants to be closer, closer still. He wants their clothes gone and his tongue on her skin and her warmth around him.

Annabeth must have managed to press the button for their floor because the doors are opening again to an empty hallway. They separate and stare down it for a moment before Percy is grabbing her hand and dragging her towards his room.

“Thank god the party was in your hotel,” Annabeth mumbles into the back of his neck as he fumbles for his key card.

Her hands have worked their way around his middle and are tugging his shirt out of his pants, making the simple task of opening the door a very complicated one. She snickers against his skin, making him shiver and her laugh more. He indulges in the small delight that they can fall between heady and goofy as easy as this.

“You're evil,” he mutters as the door finally opens and she stumbles them forwards into the room, her feet tracking his like they’re one animal.

“You'd be bored otherwise,” she says.

The door slams shut behind them and Percy manages to turn around in her arms, shucking his jacket off in the same movement. He frames Annabeth's beautiful face between his hands and they lock eyes.

“I would,” he says, softer.

Her smile grows like a flower blooming. “I love you,” she says, her voice just fond, stripped bare of anything else.

“Fuck, I love you. It might kill me.”

Annabeth pulls him in then and he's so glad because the small space between them was beginning to feel enormous and unbearable. She kisses him gently, small pecks against his mouth. And then she bites his lip and Percy’s stomach flips over and he’s dragging her against him roughly.

This time, she can undo his tie and his shirt buttons, he can find the zipper on her dress and drag it down. They both lose their shoes and he has to bend down to kiss her now. As they stumble through the room, leaving a trail of clothes behind them like breadcrumbs, Percy grips at her waist, lifting her up. Annabeth's arms go around his shoulders and she nips at his lips.

“Finally,” she says.

He drops them onto the bed in a tumble of naked limbs and catches himself on his forearms above her.

“I've missed this view,” she tells him as she tugs on his hair.

“I've missed this,” he says against her neck. “Missed you.”

“Fuck,” She says, drawn out. “Mm- me too, baby.”

Percy grins against her collarbone, nipping at her skin. Before he can make his way further down her body, she's dragging his face back up to hers and kissing him hard.

“Stay here,” she says, muffled against his mouth. “Please.”

And Percy has never really been able to refuse anything Annabeth has asked of him, even when it hurt him. So he stays as they lose the remainder of their clothes, he stays as they move together and push and pull at each other until they're both tumbling over the edge. He stays as they groan into each other's necks and share breaths and heartbeats and ecstasies.

He stays.

* * *

“That was….. intense.”

Percy knows what she means. They've had, well, a lot of sex before, but tonight felt like a different thing altogether. He's never felt as close to a person as this before.

He supposes after all that's happened between them, it's not all that surprising. Now that he can feel more certain about what's going to happen next, it's easier to feel everything in each moment.

“Yeah.”

Annabeth, lying on her belly next to him, props her chin on her fist and brushes his hair back with her other hand. Percy is on his side, running fingers over her bare back. She offers him a quiet smile as her fingertips brush over his eyebrows, nose, lips, chin.

“Remember the first night we hooked up?” she asks and he nods slowly. “I was so afraid of what might happen.”

Percy rubs his hand soft over her shoulder and back down again over her ribs.

“I was scared too,” he admits. He takes a breath before saying, “I think I still am a little.”

Annabeth's face creases into a frown and she presses her thumb between his eyebrows like he's frowning too. Maybe he is.

“Why?”

He swallows thickly. “I think it might take a little more time for this to sink in.”

Her face crumples into something more sad and Percy wants to gather her into his arms and soothe that feeling away. He doesn't though. This feels important not to brush past.

“I hurt you,” she says. It's a statement not a question and Percy feels grateful. “I'm so sorry that I did. I want to make sure you won't doubt me again, that you can feel certain about us.”

“I will.” He catches her hand and presses it to his mouth, kissing the pads of her fingers. “But it's not on you to make sure of that, Annabeth. We'll get to that place together.”

“Mm, I like the sound of that.”

“Hm?”

“Together.” She leans over and kisses him, lingering and crowding her shoulders up as he holds her closer with his arm around her back.

“Me too,” he says.

“I feel like I still owe you an explanation,” she tells him when she's settled on her own pillow.

Her arms are cradled to her chest. Percy keeps one of his around her, easing the sudden tension out of her muscles as much as he can with soft strokes up and down her back. He doesn't speak, just gives her time to process whatever she wants to tell him.

“There's a lot…” she starts, bites her lip, starts again, “I realised there's a lot of shit that's been affecting me and I hadn't realised how much until I'd hurt you.”

“Okay,” Percy says quietly. “What's it related to?”

“My mom.” She looks a little surprised at herself for saying it. Then she meets his eyes and he gives her a small smile, one he hopes is reassuring. “She, uh, was pretty overbearing when I was a kid and it had a big impact on me. She...she pushed me to be the best and I wanted to be that for her, but it was killing me.”

“Is that why you got a new manager?” he asks.

Annabeth nods. “Piper helped me get out of the contract I'd signed with my mom and found me a new manager. She was just starting out as a PR rep so I was her first client. I still don't think she realises how much she saved me.”

“It was that bad?”

Annabeth stares at his throat. “I was bulimic at that point.” The words seem to be mountains to climb over and Percy's chest aches for her. “I was...I didn't really have friends or anyone else to talk to apart from Piper and Chiron. I think I'd convinced myself that it was supposed to be that way, that I didn't deserve any more than that.”

“You were sixteen?”

She nods.

“Fuck, Annabeth.”

“I'm okay now,” she tells him.

“Are you?”

She looks at him, eyes wet, and shrugs. “I don't know, but I'm better. And I'm getting better.”

Percy nods. “What about your mom?”

“What do you mean?”

“What's she like now?”

Annabeth diverts her eyes again. “We barely spoke after changed management. I haven’t seen her since I was eighteen.”

“Fucking hell.”

Annabeth shrugs again but Percy sees the worry of her lip and he knows talking about this is hurting her more deeply than she's letting on. His heart cracks open in his chest. He'd known Annabeth’s relationship with her mom had been difficult, but he hadn't known quite how bad it had been. He supposes there's a reason Annabeth hadn't shared this before. He also realises there's probably a lot more she's not saying now.

He leans over and kisses her forehead. Annabeth's hands press against his chest. He feels like he can protect her from the world like this, where they lay safe and sound in a bed of blankets and whispered confessions.

“I think I'm starting to deal with it,” Annabeth tells him, whispered against his pulse. “I mean properly deal with it. My trust issues and my abandonment issues but-- it's gonna take time.”

Percy kisses her temple, holding her closer still. “We have time. We have so much time.”

She breathes out an unsteady breath. “Be patient with me?”

“I will,” he promises. “I've got you, Chase.”

He feels her smile against his neck. “Together, right?”

“Or not at all.”

* * *

 

**Six days**

“Don't worry, Pipes. I know I have to be back by the seventeenth.”

Piper’s sigh crackles through the speaker against Annabeth’s ear and Annabeth fails at suppressing a grin.

“Well you can't blame me for wondering if you and lover boy are gonna run off into the sunset and never come back.”

Annabeth is laughing before Piper finishes her sentence. “Piper we're in Barbados. You have the address of our hotel, you can personally escort me back Stateside if you're that worried.”

“Oh shut up. I trust you.”

“Sounds like it.”

Piper huffs out a laugh. “How is your first holiday in five years going?”

Annabeth moves her phone to her other ear, shifting her weight onto her other elbow where she's lying on the towel protecting her from the blistering sandy beach.

“It's gorgeous here.” She's currently gazing out over an unbroken horizon of blue sea under the baking sun. Her skin is nicely bronzed from two days on the island and is currently covered only by a black bikini. “I might actually never leave.”

“Don't you dare. How's Percy?”

Annabeth can't help the grin that takes over her face and is glad Piper can't see her else she’d be dragging her in a second. “He's in his element here. I've never seen him so damn happy. I've just sent him to get us drinks.”

“You sound so in love this is disgusting.”

“Shut up. Be happy for me,” she complains.

Piper laughs. “I am, Chase. I'm over the fucking moon that you finally decided to get your shit together, but I'll be happier when you agree to confirm your relationship in an interview.”

Annabeth groans. “Ugh. Why.”

Piper sounds pragmatic when she answers. “The gossip magazines are going into meltdown without answers and it's gonna turn ugly soon.”

“Assholes.”

“Yep. All you have to do is tell them you and Percy are officially not fucking around and are disgustingly committed and in love.”

“Just like that huh?”

“Well maybe adjust the wording slightly, but yes.”

“I'll think about it.”

“Bless you. Are you keeping up your training out there?”

Annabeth rolls her eyes but she's glad for the change of topic. “Of course I am. We found some courts near the beach and I've kicked Percy’s ass several times.”

“Of course. I bet he's keeping you fit in plenty of ways.”

Despite herself, Annabeth blushes at the dirty joke. She can whisper the most explicit things in Percy’s ear when they're alone together but a word from anyone else and she's red as a tomato. “Gosh, have I told you I hate you recently?”

“Lies.”

The sun is suddenly blocked from view and Annabeth looks up to find Percy standing over her in bathing shorts and sunglasses, holding two drinks in his hands. He's grinning at her and Annabeth grins back helplessly.

“Sorry, gotta go, Pipes. My boy is back.”

“Enjoy the sex.”

Annabeth scoffs. “We're on a public beach, jeez.”

“I meant later in the privacy of your hotel room. Jesus, Annabeth, control yourself.”

“Goodbye, Piper.”

“Love you, bye!”

Annabeth hangs up, tossing her phone into her bag before accepting a drink from Percy. He flops down next to her and she rubs his back.

“Hello beautiful,” she murmurs, tipping her chin up for a kiss.

Percy smiles as he leans over and presses his lips to hers gently. She can't ever get enough of these moments. Soft and comforting. Always settling something inside her chest that she hadn't realised was unsettled before.

“You're cute,” he tells her, kissing her once, twice more before leaning back on his elbows and sipping his drink.

Annabeth mirrors his position. The drink is ice cold and fruity, she gulps it down gratefully before wedging it in the sand next to her and laying down. She's just about comfortable and considering the merits of asking Percy to apply another layer of sunscreen for her when he clears his throat next to her.

“So hey, my mom wants to have us over for dinner when we get back to New York.”

Instinct makes her tense up but Percy’s fingers are running up and down the inside of her forearm and she reminds herself to calm down. She reminds herself that her panic is irrational and having dinner with Percy’s family isn't actually the emotional apocalypse her erratic heartbeat is trying to convince her it is.

Still, Annabeth is uncertain about Sally Jackson’s opinion of the girl who broke her son’s heart. She sits up, dislodging Percy’s hand on her arm, and stares out across the ocean.

“Does she really want to meet me, or is this you?”

Percy sits up next to her and she sees him give her a funny look from the corner of her eye. “Oh my god she’s been bugging me all week about it. Annabeth, she really wants to meet you properly.”

Annabeth can’t meet his eyes. “She can’t think too highly of me. After what I did.”

Percy sighs through his nose. “Hey, she knows I’m a grown up. And alright, she doesn’t know the ins and outs of everything that happened between us but, baby…” He brushes his thumb over her cheek until she looks at him. “She knows how happy you make me, and that’s all that matters.”

It's these words which unlock the uncomfortable feeling that had been collecting in her chest. After eight uncertain months and a blissfully uninterrupted six days in each other's company, Percy has become somewhat expert at easing her anxiety and Annabeth is learning to become more accepting of it.

She shoves her hand in his face. “So damn sappy.”

Percy blows a raspberry against her palm causing her to shriek and pull her hand back. He laughs and tackles her onto the towels, kissing everywhere he can reach until she's laughing so much her belly aches.

“Get off me, jeez.”

Percy just leans up on his elbows above her and kisses her nose. Annabeth brushes his hair back from his face and raises her eyebrows.

“We’re covered in sand now, you jackass.”

His grin is sunshine. “Well then, we’d better wash it off.”

Before she can do anything about it, he’s standing up and she instantly misses him. He offers a hand and she takes it, letting him drag her up too. They linger, nose to nose, hands on waists, both of them covered in sand. Annabeth pecks his lips.

“Race you to the water?”

“You are so going to lose.”

Annabeth sticks her leg out and trips him up before bolting to the shore with him yelling sabotage after her.

* * *

On the morning of their last day, they stay in bed.

It’s an entirely indulgent decision made the moment Annabeth opens her eyes and shuffles into Percy’s sleep heavy arms. The sheets are satin soft against her skin and the only sound she hears are his slow, heavy breaths and the hush of the lapping waves outside their window. The softened bristle of Percy’s unkempt stubble rubs against her cheek as he wakes up slowly. He breathes in deep through his nose, arching his body as he stretches and squeezing her closer. Annabeth kisses the side of his face.

“Morning,” she says softly.

Percy mutters something unintelligible into the pillow they’re sharing and rolls on top of her more.

“I think we should stay here today,” Annabeth suggests.

He lifts his head like he’s surprised and blinks sleepily at her, frowning and looking far too cute for her to comprehend. “Shouldn’t we be making the most of our last day or something.”

She laughs and wraps her arms around him, pulling him down to her. “Oh, I think we are.”

Percy smiles into their kiss, smelling of morning breath and she doesn’t care. “So sappy. What’s happened to you?”

“Oh, this is the real me. Better get used to it.”

He’s trying and failing to look serious. “Oh no, I’ve made a huge mistake. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with the grumpy, unattainable Annabeth.”

“Fuck you.”

He grins and kisses her. “No complaints here.”

“Oh, I’ll do, will I?”

An earnest look steals over his face. “You definitely will,” he tells her, tone heartfelt (Which is totally unfair considering they were making sex puns just a second ago.)

Annabeth’s heart melts into a little puddle. She lifts a hand to stroke his cheek and marvels at the way he leans into it. Like she’s safe for him.

God, she wants to be safe for him.

“For the rest of your life?”

Percy tilts his head to kiss her palm. “For the rest of my life.”

And perhaps it’s too early for words which sound like wedding vows, but it feels right. It feels good. It feels better than anything that’s come before. So Annabeth tells him she loves him and kisses him and rolls around in the sheets with him, wasting beautiful time on the last day of their holiday. Nobody ever told her loving somebody could feel this good and now that she has it, she wants to live and live and live in it.

* * *

She wakes up for the second time that day to an afternoon sun and an empty bed.

Rolling over, she stretches to grab her phone and gets a stupid smile on her face when she sees a text from Percy.

 **_(15.48)_ ** **_Youre so fucking cute. I’m on the balcony <3_ **

She grins and tucks the sheet around herself as she scoots off the bed, off in search of him.

He is silhouetted by an orange sky, sitting on one of the lounge chairs with a cup of coffee in hand. He looks quiet and peaceful, Annabeth is almost sad to interrupt him. Almost, but not quite.

“Hey you,” she says.

Percy looks up at her with a smile as she cards her fingers through his hair, still damp from his shower.

“Hey you.”

Annabeth moves to sit across his lap, keeping her hand in his hair and stealing his coffee. Percy wraps his arms around her, settling one hand on her hip and the other over her legs as they watch the sun over the ocean. Something settles deeply within her chest. It’s the calmest she’s felt for a very long time.

“How long have you been up?” she asks him.

“About forty minutes or so. You looked too cute to wake up and I figured you needed the extra sleep.”

“Mm, I feel so lazy. I think I need to go for a workout.”

The corner of Percy’s mouth quirks up. “I thought that’s what we did all morning.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes at him and tugs on his hair. “Jeez. I need to go for a run.”

Percy nuzzles the side of her head and places a kiss there. “Alright, let’s go then.”

“Not just yet though, I wanna sit with you for a while.”

And, well, they’ve spent all morning wrapped up in each other and the whole week in each other’s company without reprieve or interruption. Perhaps she shouldn’t be craving even more time alone with him, but she is. She just feels at peace this way, fitting into the empty spaces of him, letting the quiet spill over them both, feeling their breaths and heartbeats thrum together in time.

Eventually, after the coffee is finished and Percy’s hair is just about dry, they get up and get ready to leave their hotel room. Although she’s packed workout clothes, Annabeth dons a pair of Percy’s boxer briefs and a long sleeved, baggy rugby shirt.

“Cute,” Percy comments as he pulls a shirt over his head.

She grins at him, propping her foot on the bed to tie her laces. “So are you.”

Percy pockets their room key and they leave their phones behind. The afternoon is seeping into evening and brings a cool enough breeze to make the heat comfortable to run in. Although neither of them are pushing themselves to the limit.

They jog together at an easy pace for about twenty minutes before they start kicking at each other’s ankles and sprint racing to the next lamppost. Then Annabeth jumps on his back for a while and he bounces her along, his arms hooked under her thighs. She loops her arms around his neck and kisses his cheek, feeling his dimple against her lips as his smile widens. The afternoon stretches into evening and she feels soft, soft, soft.

She lets him carry her a little while until something catches her eye.

“Oh look,” she says, pointing ahead of them and tapping his chest as a prompt to let her down.

Percy follows her at a steady walk, unbearably fond smile on his face, as she runs towards the derelict tennis courts sitting by the roadside. Annabeth clambers through a hole in the wire fence and kicks a rock across the pockmarked concrete. The lines are tired and faded, the net hangs like a sallow smile across the middle of the court. Though it doesn’t make her feel sad, only wistful.

“It's a shame,” Percy says from behind her. He's climbing through the gap in the fence and frowning at the sagging net.

She throws him a smile. “Let's put it to some use.”

He looks at her, surprise lifting his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth.

“Are you challenging me, Chase?”

In answer, she runs to the baseline and turns to face him, preparing to serve an imaginary ball with an imaginary racquet. Percy ambles over to the opposite side of the court, hands in pockets as he faces her with an amused sort of smile.

Annabeth exerts an unattractive grunt as she swings her arm down. She watches as Percy drags one hand out of his pocket to return her enthusiastic serve.

“And Jackson returns with a cross court ball, rather slow off the mark but with surprising accuracy.” She starts slow motion running over to the corner as she commentates. “Chase returns the shot with unlady like composure.”

They go back and forth like that and by the time they’ve both racked up a few fake points, Percy is smiling, and Annabeth feels like her job is done here. So she drops the commentary and brings up the topic of his mom again.

“So I never asked you about having your mom at the final.”

She’d tripped over several versions of bringing this up in her head and none had been particularly eloquent nor tactful, so she decides to go for blunt.

Percy’s surprise shows for a moment, but he returns her serve and shakes his head, laughing lowly like it’s at himself. “Yeah, I realised I was being ridiculous.”

“Percy, your feelings aren’t ridiculous. There’s a real reason you were afraid to have her there. I’m proud of you for overcoming that though.”

He doesn’t return the ball this time and stands there with his arms hanging by his sides and his head tilted at her.

Annabeth raises her eyebrows at him. “Is Percy Jackson, winner of the US Open, conceding defeat?”

He just smiles at her. “I love you.”

She smiles back, helpless. Then she walks forward, steps over the sagging net and wraps her arms around his middle, tilting her chin up to him in a silent request. Percy meets her halfway and their lips slide together in the gentle familiar way that makes her toes curl.

“What made you change your mind about it?” she asks him, still pressed against him.

Percy looks away, like he’s contemplating, or putting his thoughts together. She lets him.

She releases her grip on him and makes them sit down, in the middle of the pot-holed, moonlit tennis court, and waits for him. For a moment, she’s oddly struck by the familiarity of the night of the gala when Piper had found her and held her as she’d put parts of herself back together again. Annabeth hopes she can do the same for Percy.

She sits next to him, shifted just behind, with her arm hooked through his and her chin resting on his shoulder. He doesn’t have to meet her eye if he doesn’t want to.

“Did I tell you why she stopped coming to tournaments?” Percy asks her and she shakes her head. “I was nineteen and made it through to the quarters of the Cincinnati Open…”

“I remember that game. You choked.”

Percy turns his head to look at her. “You watched that?”

“Oh yeah, I was your number one stalker. Watched all your games, had posters of you in my room, kept one of your sweatbands you’d thrown into the crowd.” She grins and he smiles back. Some of the tension rolls out of his shoulders.

In reality, she had been at the same tournament and caught the match during one of her breaks from training. She’d never been able to figure out why he’d played so badly in that match, when he’d been doing so well through the whole tournament.

“I took one look at my mom in my box and freaked. She’d looked so nervous and it scared the hell out of me. We agreed that she wouldn’t sit in the box for any games after that.”

“Oh, Perce.”

He shifts and she can tell that it’s guilt eating him up still over this.

“I don’t know, I think I let myself use it as an excuse or something. Truth is I was always so scared of letting her down; she gave me everything she could when I was a kid. She gave up so much so that I could have a chance and the first real opportunity I had to give something back to her, I lost.”

“Percy, it was your first pro tournament,” she admonishes.

“I know. But it’s easier to say that now. Back then I was convinced that’s all it came down to. Afterwards, I think that’s what made me want to just enjoy it too - if I was too serious about it all and if my mom came to watch me then the pressure was suddenly on again and I would crack and lose it all.”

Annabeth isn’t sure whether she should interject with anything yet, so she sits quietly and kisses his shoulder through his shirt. Percy turns to kiss her forehead.

“You reminded me how to be brave. How to believe in myself.”

Her heart swells. She doesn’t know what to do with this emotion, this feeling bottled in her heart ready to overspill. So she lifts her chin from his shoulder and kisses him. Because he reminded her how to be brave too. The beautiful thing in all of this is how much they saved each other without even trying to.

“I’m so glad she was there at the final, that she got to be a part of it.”

Annabeth smiles. “I am too. I’m looking forward to meeting her properly.”

“She’s gonna love you.”

“We’ll see.”

Percy turns to her, shifting so he can wrap his arms around her. “I’m serious, she already likes you and she hasn’t even met you.”

Annabeth preens under his affection and laughs when he presses several small kisses to her cheek. “I think I’m gonna love her too,” she says.

“You will.”

And the certainty in his voice settles some of the rattling nerves in her chest. That certainty tells her how sure he is about having her in his life, about accepting her into his family and keeping her there. While a year ago, this might have terrified her into running, now this knowledge seeps into her bones and makes her feel settled here, in his arms. Now all she feels is safe.

It’s a feeling she’s desperate to hold onto.

* * *

 

**Six weeks**

Annabeth has never minded travelling much. She’d known from a very early stage that this would make up a large part of her life and has never fought it. It’s lonely, but most of her life was anyway.

Now, though, it’s different.

She can’t say it’s either better or worse, because truthfully, it’s both. That’s the thing, when you open up to letting people in, when you let those connections form and learn to love people closely again, you miss them when they’re not with you.

But here’s the great thing: she has those people to go back home to. She has people to miss and who miss her. She also realises, like rising out of a sinkpool, how many people she’d been holding at arm's-length; how many people she has to meet up with and make time for. She’s focused as ever on her game, but this time it doesn’t consume her every thought.

Annabeth had read once that loneliness is a state of mind, now she thinks she might understand what that means. She’d built up walls to the sky around herself to keep others out; in a room full of people, she’d been standing with her hands over her ears.

An airport is a funny place to contemplate loneliness. Surrounded by people leaving or reuniting with or on their way to their loved ones. In bed last night, Percy had told her he’s going to pick her up at the gate when she gets back and she’d laughed at him.

“No, I swear,” he’d told her, determination mixing with cheek as he’d grinned at her. “I’m gonna be holding one of those signs that says Annabeth Chase, girlfriend. And then you’re gonna run into my arms and we’ll kiss and it’ll be so romantic.”

“I’ll smell like plane.”

“My favourite smell.”

“I’ll be tired and grumpy.”

“Oh no, that’ll be a new experience to challenge,” he’d said dryly.

“Fuck off.”

“So can I do it?”

“Hm?”

“Come to the airport to sweep you off your feet?”

And it had somehow meant more that he’d asked if she was comfortable with the gesture. So she’d smiled and wrapped her arms around him and told him yes.

Though that day is three weeks away and Annabeth is currently sitting in an airport waiting to fly almost seven thousand miles away from him, she’s already feeling giddy about seeing him again. She had left him this morning when the sky outside was still dark. With the sheets tucked around his shoulders and his face pressed into the pillow. He’d made several noises of protest when she’d gotten up and had tilted his face up for a kiss before she’d left to get her cab.

A small strange part of her loved leaving him in his bed, a loving place they’d made theirs over the past month, because she knew she would be coming back to him. The rest of her had yearned to climb back under the covers next to him and bundle herself up in his warmth.

After she’s boarded the plane, Annabeth pulls out her phone to update him of this fact. His reply is almost instant: a request for her to text as soon as she lands in Beijing complete with a red heart. She replies promising to do so with a reciprocated heart and is about to turn her airplane mode on when she gets an Instagram notification: _pjackson has tagged you in a photo_.

She taps on it and is taken to the app. Her heart trips as she waits for the image to load and when it does, it’s knocked halfway out of her chest. He’s posted a picture of the two of them taken on his phone the day before. On an unusually cold day in late September, they’d bundled up in coats and hats. Percy’s lips are pressed to her cheek but his smile is still visible and hers takes over her face as she leans into him.

On the one hand, it’s a photo of two people sharing a kiss as the weather turns cold, on the other, it’s just love: undefinable, captured in a passing moment.

Underneath the caption reads: _im gonna miss you for three weeks while you’re kicking butt <3 _

It’s not the first picture either of them have posted publicly. After the press statement, requested and approved by Piper, had been released Annabeth had been the one to upload a picture she’d taken of Percy, eating breakfast at the little table in her kitchen with her socked feet in his lap. She’d captioned it _yummy breakfast (the company isn’t so bad either)_ and he’d pulled her into his lap to kiss the cream cheese off her lips. After that, Percy put up a picture of her wearing his jersey to work out in, Annabeth posted one of their group of friends at a bar in which she’d been sitting in his lap, Percy a candid taken by Jason with their arms around each other and mouths open in laughter.

This new photo, then, is normal amongst the others on their accounts. This doesn’t stop the flurry of butterflies in her stomach when she sees it: their relationship as the world views it.

As the cabin crew begin their pre-flight checks, Annabeth double taps the photo and leaves a comment below: _i’ll miss you making me breakfast, not sure how i’ll cope without it <3 _

Unwritten, is: I’ll miss waking up with you and being the first person you talk to every day and the last person you talk to every night. I’ll miss you and I feel so lucky to be able to miss you.

Unwritten, is: I love you too.

* * *

 **Percy** ❤️

(19.24) Sam loves you more than she loves me

(19.25) What can i say? Im very loveable

(19.25) Did you watch the match with her?

(19.25) Oh yeah, it was a family occasion. Mom made her famous seven layer dip

(19.25) Im impressed with the dedication from the jacksons

(19.25) Also, when am i gonna get to taste this famous dip? Im feeling unloved

(19.25) Just two seconds ago i told you my little sister loves you more than she loves me

(19.25) Needy much?

(19.25) Shut up

(19.26) I miss you

(19.26) I miss you too

(19.26) Im proud of you, i’ve never seen you play so well

(19.26) Aw shucks

(19.26) Thats all i get? Shucks?

(19.26) Now who’s needy

(19.27) Welp i gotta go, chiron’s waiting. Speak later xx

(19.27) Love you xx

(19.34) Oh and you’re right, this is the best i’ve ever played. But it’s also the happiest i’ve ever been in my life and that’s because of you. So thanks, or whatever.

(19.34)  ❤️

(19.35) Sap ❤️

* * *

“So, you’re through to the quarters, how does it feel?”

Annabeth lets a grin take over her face. She has about twenty minutes before the adrenaline seeps out of her veins and she’s left a walking corpse.

“Pretty fantastic,” she tells the reporter. “I feel like I’m playing the best I have in a long time and I’m in a really great place with my team. So I’m pretty confident going forward.”

Half a dozen hands shoot up when she finishes and Piper points to a man in a blue shirt. “We’ve all noticed Percy Jackson’s absence from this tournament. Do you have any more information to share on that?”

“Geez, I can’t get through one interview without a question about my personal life.” She sighed, albeit far more good-naturedly than she would have a year ago, still annoyed. “Percy explained himself that he’s recovering from his knee injury and spending time with his family. Now does anyone have any questions for me or have I been reduced to just a girlfriend so early on?”

That earns a few chuckles and some uncomfortable shuffling but several hands go up again anyway.

“Your next match is with Angelique Kerber, who’s currently ranking number one. Does that sort of thing affect your mindset going into a game?”

“Well I’m only human, so of course it plays on my mind. But at the end of the day, she’s another opponent and I try to prepare like I prepare with everyone else.”

“You always come across very composed before a match.” Another reporter says. Annabeth suspects the term ‘looks like a bitch’ might have been used in her first draft of the question. “Do you ever get very nervous?”

“Of course I do. It’s something that weirdly hasn’t gone away over the years, though it’s less intense and I have better ways of coping now.”

“Like what?”

Annabeth blows out air between her lips. “I review my gameplay, watch TV or read if I’m struggling to sleep, and I talk to anyone else who’s awake at that hour. The time zone between here and home have actually proved quite useful in that respect.”

She feels oddly brave for allowing them that small insight into her personal life, albeit an enormous downplay of her phone calls to Percy at 2am when she’s unable to sleep. Sometimes he just places her on speakerphone as he goes about tidying his apartment, or he plugs his headphones in and takes her jogging with him while she lies in bed and talks and talks and talks through his panting breaths. It’s a strange sort of intimacy she’s never been accustomed to before, but one she’s fast learning to love.

Piper announces “One last question” and points to a shorter lady in the front row with a slightly pinched look about her.

“You mentioned having a good team as being important. How is it having your mother as a member of that team again?”

Annabeth’s blood runs cold. “Excuse me?”

The lady raises her eyebrows. “She’s at the tournament? It was assumed…”

It was assumed that Annabeth had re-hired her as her manager slash coach slash mother. Except it wasn’t, because Annabeth hasn’t seen her mother since she was eighteen years old, never mind in the past two weeks. She hasn’t invited her into her supporters box or discussed gameplay with her or been even remotely aware of her presence. And this reporter full well knows all of these things, which makes this question a cruel attempt to catch Annabeth off guard.

Annabeth hates how well it works.

Although the details of the fallout with her mother had by no means been broadcasted, enough was deduced by the press for it to be well-known that their relationship was close to irreparable.

Feeling Piper’s anxious gaze on her, Annabeth manages to swallow and shake her head and just about keep the tremble out of her voice when she answers. “You assumed wrong. She must be here for another reason.”

An army of hands shoot up as more questions are thrown her way but Piper announces the end of the junket and allows Annabeth to escape out a side door where she leans against the first wall she can find and fights off a panic attack.

Piper appears in front of her either seconds or hours later and grips her shoulders.

“Breathe. Breathe.”

Annabeth holds onto her elbows and focuses on the strands of hair framing Piper’s face, then on a dent in the wall behind her where the door handle has hit too many times, then on the ink stain on Piper’s crisp white collar, then on the steady sounds of her breathing.

Breathe. Breathe.

“Fuck,” she sputters out however many seconds or minutes later.

“Okay?” Piper asks.

Annabeth unclenches her fingers from Piper’s jacket and straightens up, pressing her shoulder blades into the wall behind her.

“She’s here?”

Piper looks distraught. “I had no idea. I’ve asked Jason to find out more but Annabeth, you don’t have to see her. She has no business being here and you have no obligation to entertain the idea of seeing her. You’re here to play tennis.”

Annabeth takes a deep breath. “I know.” She nods, convincing herself. “I know.”

“I’m gonna take you back to your room,” Piper tells her, and she does.

Annabeth doesn’t realise she’s gripping Piper’s hand until they reach her suite and Piper has to juggle her bag to find the room key. Annabeth lets go and helps her, pushing the door open herself and holding it open for Piper as she mutters an apology.

“Shut up,” Piper says. “Anyway, I like it. It makes me feel loved.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes and blows out a small laugh.

Piper chucks her shoulder. “Go shower. I’ll be back in a couple of hours with more information and food.”

“I love you.”

“Of course you do and I love you too.”

After Piper leaves, Annabeth really does have the intention to shower but she ends up sitting down on her bed, and then lying down and all at once her exhaustion - physical and emotional - crash down on her and she’s lost the fight to stay awake before it’s even begun.

She’s woken up by her cell phone ringing from somewhere within the room. The sky outside is darker and so is the room. She stumbles off the bed and switches the bedside lamp on before going in search of her phone. It’s in an annoying side pocket of her gym bag and she’s sure it will just ring out before she manages to find it, but then her fingers close around it finally and she blinks at the screen a couple of times before accepting the call.

“Hi,” she says, hating the crack already forming in that tiny syllable.

“Annabeth, are you okay?” The rush of affection in Percy’s voice sweeps through her bones.

“I’ve been better,” she says, collapsing back on the bed and keeping the phone pressed against her ear.

“That journalist is an asshole. You know I’m a lover not a fighter but I wanted to hurt her when she asked that question.”

Annabeth shakes her head. “Fighting for my honour?”

“I’m romantic like that.”

“I appreciate it.”

Percy takes in a breath and she can picture him tugging his hand through his hair, distressed. “How are you feeling?” he asks.

Annabeth sighs. “Like shit. I don’t understand why she’s here.”

“You know you have no obligation to see her.”

“I know, Piper already reminded me of that.”

“Good, I’m glad she’s looking after you.”

“I don’t need looking after.”

“Who said anything about need? It’s okay to be looked out for, Annabeth.”

Another sigh. “I know, I’m sorry.”

“Shut up, stop apologising.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Percy?”

“Yeah?”

“I miss you.”

“God, Annabeth, I miss you too. You have no idea how much I want to be there right now, just to hold you.”

Annabeth turns on her side and drags a pillow down to hug against her chest. “It’s okay. This is enough, just stay on the phone with me for a little while.”

“Okay, baby. We can do that.”

And they do. Percy distracts her with updates about his day and his new workout regime and they branch briefly into a discussion about extraterrestrial life - one picked up from a Sunday morning conversation in his bed three weeks ago. Then it comes back to her mother and why she’s so angry and he lets her rant.

“I just don’t understand, is she not done fucking up my life? And whatever, fine, if she wants to reach out and be part of my life, maybe I could let that happen. But not like this! Why the fuck can’t she pick up the phone like a normal person, why does everything have to be so dramatic and about her? Why does she still want to hurt me so much?”

“Maybe she doesn’t realise.”

Annabeth feels her brow furrow as she stops in her tracks where she had been pacing. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…maybe she didn’t actually consider how it would affect you because she didn’t realise. Maybe she doesn’t realise how much of an impact her actions had on you when you were younger, and how much it would hurt you if she showed up like this.”

“But…”

“Annabeth, I’m not saying this to get you to feel sorry for her. But in her head, this might have actually been a supportive gesture.”

“But it’s not. I feel like shit.”

“I know. I know, baby. And she should have known that, she should. But she might not, which means her intentions might not be bad.”

Annabeth lets that sink in a little and sits down on the end of the bed. She hadn’t considered that her mother might actually want to see her, hadn’t let herself go down that avenue of possibility. Now that she does, she imagines the awkwardness of coming face to face with her again. There’s a swirling tornado of things she wants to yell at her, but in her mind’s eye she’s silent as she looks her mother in the face.

“So...you think I should talk to her.”

“I think you should do whatever is best for you. If you want to ignore her and focus on the tournament, that’s your choice and you’re justified in making it. If you want to yell at her, you’re justified in doing that too. But whatever you do, do it for you. You don’t owe her shit.”

She falls back onto the mattress and stares at the ceiling. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, thank you.”

“You don’t have to decide what to do right now.”

“I know.”

“Do you feel better?”

“I don’t know.”

Percy laughs. “Well, that’s okay.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too. You should get some rest.”

“Yeah, I need to shower.”

“Mm. Wish I could join you.”

Annabeth laughs. “Pervert.”

“You’re my girlfriend, it’s allowed.”

“Hm.”

“I’ll text you later.”

“Bye, Perce.”

“Bye.”

After she hangs up, she holds her phone to her chest and wills the smile on her face to calm the heck down. He’s so good at making her feel better, she loves him so much.

It’s only when Piper returns with dinner for them both that Annabeth actually gets up and has a shower, feeling much better than she had two hours ago.

* * *

Her mother arrived at the tournament two days before her fourth round match and had watched it from the crowd.

Annabeth had texted Percy as much when she’d found out and when he’d asked her how she felt about that she’d told him she didn’t know. She still doesn’t know, five days and two won matches later.

The final is tomorrow and she’s managed to not only avoid speaking to her mother but also focus on her game enough to win her last two matches without too much trouble. Though she’d pulled a muscle in her back during the last set of the semi-final, which leaves her in her current position face down on a massage table while her physio pokes at her back.

“How’s that feel?” he asks her, pushing his thumb along her spine.

“Ow.”

“Out of ten?”

“Six. Ow, fuck. Eight.”

“Okay. You’ll need to rest until the final and we’ll probably have to tape it, but you should be alright.”

* * *

 **Percy** ❤️

(13.57) I’m so ducking bored

(13.57) *ducking

(13.57) AH

(13.58) F U C K I N G

(13.58) I hate this phone

(13.58) You and your damn thumbs

(13.58) Autocorrect is out to get me

(13.58) Sure

(13.58) As if you’re bored. You’ve been “resting” for less than four hours

(13.58) Don’t airquote me, i didn’t sign up for this cheek

(13.58) And it’s been four hours twenty minutes, im going insane here

(13.58) You signed up for all of it and you love it

(13.58) I bet you’re not even lying down as you should be

(13.59) ...yes

(13.59) Annabeth

(13.59) Percy

(13.59) I used those quotation mark for a reason and i was right wasn’t i? You’re on a treadmill or something right now aren’t you

(13.59) What? No, come on. I’m not /that/ bad

(13.59) Im just walking around

(13.59) Tut tut

(13.59) Dont be judgy. Notice how i haven’t brought up that it’s 2am there and you’re awake

(14.00) Im talking to my gorgeous girlfriend

(14.00) Who needs slep

(14.00) Slep

(14.00) Duck off

(14.00) Oh my god

(14.00) *FUCK

(14.00) Karmas a bitch aint it

(14.01) Dont be mean im fighting off sleep to keep you company while you ignore your physios instructions

(14.01) You really should sleep

(14.01) Nah

(14.01) Tell me where you are

(14.01) I love it when you talk dirty to me

(14.01) Im walking back to my hotel

(14.02) My question was totally innocent

(14.02) But you can tell em what you’re wearing if you want

(14.02) I guess

(14.02) A leather bikini

(14.02) Sounds uncomfortable

(14.02) And cold

(14.02) It’s not so bad. gets me some funny looks but they may just be staring because im so famous

(14.02) And hot

(14.02) That too

(14.03) Im back in the hotel now

(14.03) Walking through the lobby

(14.03) Such an exciting play by play

(14.08) …

(14.11) Annabeth?

(14.12) On tenterhooks here…

(14.30) Im hoping your battery just died or something and you’re not leaving me for a charming chinese man

(14.31) Text me when you can so i don’t have to call the embassy xx

(15.12) Sorry

(15.12) Just saw my mom

* * *

Annabeth is grinning at her phone, tapping out a snarky reply to Percy’s last message, when she hears her own name called. She looks up and immediately finds the only person standing in the empty lobby staring back at her.

Her mother somehow looks entirely different and exactly the same from the last time Annabeth had seen her. She’s wearing a purple dress which makes her look like royalty and her hair is carefully pinned up, her face is a politician’s; entirely unreadable.

“Hello, Annabeth.”

Annabeth just stares at her, her phone threatening to slip out of her hands onto the marble floor and smash. She closes her gaping mouth and shoves her phone into her pocket.

“Hi,” she manages and frowns, wishing that could have somehow been better.

“I didn’t mean to ambush you, before you think that I’m trying to throw you off before tomorrow.”

“That’s not what I thought.”

She looks taken aback. “Oh,” she says quietly and then avoids her gaze by glancing around the room.

If Annabeth didn’t know better, she’d almost say her mother looked nervous. She clasps her hands in front of her and presses her lips in a tight line.

“So what are you doing here? If it’s not to ambush me.”

Her mother’s gaze snaps to her and Annabeth watches her jaw clench. “I came to the tournament to watch you play, Annabeth.”

“Okay.” Though she feels far from it.

“I just.” She draws in a deep breath like what she’s about to say will take a lot from her. “I’m very proud of you, Annabeth. And I’m sorry I couldn’t be part of your career.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

Her mother lifts her chin. Annabeth expects the haughty defence now, the scolding remarks she became so attuned to as a child. “I know there is.”

“I can’t just forgive you for everything because you showed up to a tournament.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

“Then why are you here?” Annabeth asks, exasperation adding volume to her voice. She cringes as it echoes around the large lobby.

Her mother glances around them too, looking abashed. “Do you mind if we…” She gestures to a small collection of chairs in the corner.

Annabeth nods and follows her. The uncomfortable feeling in her chest only grows as she takes a seat opposite her mother. She doesn’t say anything and Annabeth’s not sure if she expects her to go first.

“Why did you come? And don’t give me some spiel about being supportive. You haven’t been here for the past ten years so why the hell do you think it’s gonna make a difference turning up now?”

“Annabeth, I-”

But Annabeth’s rage has suddenly bubbled to the surface and she’s unable and unwilling to stop it. “Do you realise how much you fucked me up? Did you even consider how much it might hurt me just showing up here? Do you even care about me?”

“Of course I care about you.” she looks distressed but Annabeth can’t process it. Rage boils in her stomach.

“Then why are you still hurting me?”

Her mother clenches her jaw and breathes in deeply through her nose. “It wasn’t easy for me to come here, Annabeth. I’m trying.”

Horrifyingly, Annabeth feels her eyes water as she shakes her head. “It would have been easier ten years ago.”

“Well I can’t change that.”

“No, you can’t.”

“So is that it? You’re not giving me a chance?”

Annabeth breathes in deeply and hears the same breath shake on the way out. “This isn’t trying, mom. This is ambushing me and demanding my attention the day before an important match. This is you trying to gain the upper hand without actually showing me that you’re sorry or that you want to be in my life again.”

She can’t meet Annabeth’s gaze and that’s when Annabeth knows she’s called her out. “I’m very sorry you feel that way,” she says in a small voice.

Annabeth takes a few calming breaths, fixing her gaze on the tinkling water feature a few feet away. “Why now?” she asks. “What took you so long?”

She manages to look at her mother again when she asks her this and her mother is looking right back at her. Her expression is pained and, if Annabeth lets herself look for it, tinged with guilt. In the end, her mother shakes her head and blows out a little laugh - a noise you might make at something terribly ironic.

“Annabeth, you got a lot of your traits from me. Prideful is one of the less fortunate ones, I should think you would understand how difficult it can be to admit when you’re in the wrong.”

Yes, she knows how difficult it can be. It had taken months of Piper’s insistence and unwavering support for Annabeth to admit that her mother’s behaviour towards her was not okay, and even longer to accept that it was abusive. Her relationship with Percy had been stalled and nearly lost altogether because she had been too prideful and too stubborn to admit her feelings and accept someone else into her life so fully. But she had done and it had been hard, it still is, but it’s also so so worth it.

So instead of arguing back with her mother, she just sighs and smiles, though it feels melancholy. “Maybe I do understand,” she says. “But I’ve also learned that when you really love someone, you push your pride aside.”

Her mother looks taken aback and a little ashamed. Annabeth sighs and stands up. She considers saying something else, but everything is already laid out, bare and ugly for the world to see. So she steps around her mother’s chair and walks towards the elevators.

“Annabeth?”

Despite herself, Annabeth turns around.

Her mother looks earnest when she says, “I am very proud of you.”

And well, that’s the thing.

“You know, eleven years ago, that would have meant everything to me. I used to kill myself hoping you would tell me that. And you never did.” She swallows thickly. “It doesn’t really mean so much anymore.”

Then, without another word, Annabeth turns on her heel and jabs her thumb against the elevator button. She almost cries with relief when one opens straight away and darts inside. She leans up against the back wall of the elevator and stares out at the lobby as her mother walks into view, though she doesn’t attempt to follow or stop her. The expression on her face is almost sad, Annabeth isn’t sure she’s ever seen her look that way before. Neither of them say anything and Annabeth is left to watch her mother eclipse from view as the metal doors close and leave her facing her own reflection.

* * *

The next morning, Annabeth wakes up to a phone full of messages and a snapchat from Percy. She opens the latter first and grins at the image: Percy lying in bed with his face smushed into the pillow, eyes mostly closed and face barely visible in the darkness. Though she’s waking up in a bed seven thousand miles away, it makes her feel closer to him. She replies with her own selfie, not bothering to rub the sleep out of her eyes or tame the wildness that is her hair escaping its scrunchie.

It’s moments like this she’s careful not to take for granted; the knowledge that she has someone in her life who she can be so open and unflattering with and he just takes it in and returns it in kind. It’s a level of intimacy she’s never truly known before, not just wrapped up in sex and physical closeness but in things far more mundane than she had contemplated before.

It’s like. She knows the little protesting noises he makes when his alarm goes off at six, she knows how he takes his coffee and the fact that he has to listen to sports on the radio because watching them on the TV is too intense. It’s like: going grocery shopping with him and keeping a spare pair of glasses at his place and stopping to buy a gift she sees on her way home because she knows he’ll like it. It’s their tumble of shoes together in the hallway of his apartment and their dirty laundry dumped together in hampers. It’s knowing he eats apples all the way down to the pips and that he’s allergic to cherries.

They had spoken last night, after Annabeth had gotten back to her hotel room and washed her face and laid down on top of the comforter for a while. Percy had, miraculously, still been awake and she’d admonished him for staying up so late.

 _“I thought you’d been abducted, I couldn’t go to sleep,”_ he’d told her, voice drenched with fatigue.

_“I’m sorry for worrying you.”_

_“It’s okay, Annabeth. How are you feeling?”_

And that had been a question she’d heard or read far too many times over the past few days. But it’s nice, to have this horrible torrent of emotions acknowledged and asked about. Nicer still, to be able to talk her way through it with her boyfriend when he should be sleeping. He’d told her he was proud of her for standing up to her mom and had let her voice her anxieties about shutting down the possibility for a reconciliation.

_“It’s never too late for that, Annabeth. Not to be a cliche but, the ball really is in your court. I think she wanted to give you the choice here, so you can still make it.”_

_“You know, you’re much wiser when you’re sleep deprived.”_

_“Fuck off.”_

_“Go to sleep, baby. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.”_

She’d ended up texting Piper which inevitably resulted in ordering room service and ad libbing bad commentary over a telenovela which, for some strange reason, was the only show they could find on the hotel television.

Annabeth had fallen asleep feeling better about the situation with her mom, but this morning, reality slides back into place. It doesn’t feel as dreadful as she’d anticipated though.

She meets with Chiron for breakfast to go over their game plan one more time and then makes a quick visit to her physio who gives her an optimistic progress report. Then she’s thrown into the usual preparations for a match and the world drowns itself out. She knows how to focus for a game. The inner turmoil she is facing is no longer a lonely one, as they all used to be, so it doesn’t have the power to weigh her down so much. She knows her mother is waiting on the other side of this, but she isn’t scared of that fact as she once was. She still doesn’t know what she’s going to do, but she knows she’ll figure it out.

She also knows that on the other side of this match is going home to Percy.

She _also_ knows that she can play this game and win. The confidence of that fact buzzes through her as she steps out onto the court to a screaming crowd. She knows, as she steps up to the baseline and stares across the bright blue court at her opponent, who’s five foot eight inches tall and made of muscle and determination, that this game is hers. Annabeth spins her racquet in her hands and watches the ball fly high from Simona Halep’s grip and moves before it makes contact with the racquet.

…

Halep’s serves are like cannon fire, booming across the court with absurd force and hitting their target with incredible accuracy.

They’re not unbeatable though.

…

Meeting those serves toe for toe is gruelling work, forcing Annabeth to use every inch of her core strength to return the firepower being hurled around court.

Her muscles burn, burn, burn.

She digs deeper still.

…

Annabeth wins the first set by the grit of her teeth and her back is aching. A solid six.

Sitting at the side of court, she straightens her spine and gulps water. She doesn’t want to show her weakness, though Halep will already know it’s there.

Her opponent sits on the other side of the umpire. A glance tells Annabeth of the angry shape of her jaw, the fire in her eyes. Annabeth holds back a grin, she loves knowing she’s gotten under someone’s skin.

…

Halep breaks her fourth serve and Annabeth falls badly in the next game, enough to tweak her back.

She’s now four games down to three and the pain has officially peaked to a solid eight. She stands slowly and allows her back to stretch upright. The tape is doing its job and allowing her to move without crying out. The sharp ache begins to subside as she walks back to the baseline and waits for Halep to serve. She prays that she has enough strength to break Halep back, she has already once in this game.

She doesn’t a second time though, nor does she at her next opportunity and when Halep breaks her for a second time and Annabeth is down five games to six, she realises this could be the turning point of the match. Halep would still need to win the next set after this for the match, but it’s not an unachievable goal.

In this moment, she doesn’t have the hindsight to realise, but looking back at this match she will understand that the next game is the make it or break it game. The opportunity to choke or come back fighting.

In this moment, Annabeth takes a deep breath, silencing the endless noises of the court in her mind. She watches her opponent across the court and lets her disappear for a moment too. She sees Percy, with his brilliant smile and the fierce confidence and support he showers her with. Then Piper and Chiron are there, quietly determined and endlessly loving. And then her mother materialises, an unwavering warrior of pride. But then, much like the night before when Annabeth had stood in the elevator and watched her mother disappear from view, her own image reflects back at her.

And that’s all Annabeth really needs. Her own determination, her own belief in herself; her steady certainty that she deserves this and she can make this championship hers.

…

The next two games are hers but Halep holds following serve. The score stands at seven all, another tie break. Annabeth has to win the next two games.

She’s exhausted and in pain.

And she’s euphoric.

She and Percy have talked countless times about the balance of enjoying and working when it comes to this game, but right now, in this match, in this set, she thinks she finally gets it. Her veins are buzzing with excitement as the umpire hushes for quiet, her mind races as she watches Halep across court, rolling the fuzzy tennis ball around in her hand as she decides her next shot; play deep, push her back and make her use her weaker backhand.

When it works, Annabeth clenches her fist close to her chest and grins. Each time, each play, she watches and calculates and strikes. All the while, her heart drums in her chest not just with effort but with exhilaration.

She holds her set and bounces on her feet as she waits for Halep to serve. Anticipation shoots fire to all over her nerve endings and she’s off the mark before Halep has moved herself, squeezing the ball back across court where Halep can’t reach it. And so it goes, point after point until Annabeth is faced with the first Championship point of the match.

It’s a cruelly long rally in which both players are pushed to the limits of their expertise and strength. As it goes, she’s on the floor of the hard court when she finally wins, having dived to flick the ball back over the net and watched as Halep scrambled fruitlessly to return it. The ball flies wide of her racquet though and the stadium roars with noise so deafening that Annabeth barely catches the umpire announce: “Game, set, match, Chase.”

Annabeth falls back, hands thrown to her face as she begins to cry with joy.

Etiquette forces her to stand and Halep’s genuine smile is returned with a handshake across the net. Then her attention is drawn to the crowd, who she waves her racquet to like a salute, a thank you: _thank you_ for your belief, your support, for making this achievement so so much fun.

Thank you.

* * *

Annabeth checks out of her hotel the next day. There’s a car waiting for her ready to take her to the airport but she lingers in the lobby, suitcase upright next to her.

After the match yesterday she’d asked Piper for a favour at which Piper had frowned and asked - several times - if she was sure, but eventually complied. The ball is in her court, Percy had told her. Well, she’s making her serve.

The automatic lobby doors open with a whoosh and in steps a woman, her heels clicking on the marble. She’s dressed in jeans and a blouse, and looking like she hasn’t spent all morning building the usual stone wall around herself.

“Hi, mom,” Annabeth says as she approaches.

“Hello, Annabeth.”

There’s a moment of stilted silence where neither one of them know particularly what to do with themselves. The awkwardness leftover from their heated conversation two days ago makes itself very much present and Annabeth coughs to break her way through it, determined to persevere.

“When do you fly out?” she asks.

“Tomorrow.” She looks at Annabeth’s case and smiles hesitantly. “I assume your flight is earlier.”

Annabeth nods. “My car’s waiting.”

Her mother nods, a small frown creasing her brow. She’s probably wondering why Annabeth asked to meet up with her if she didn’t actually intend to hang around long enough to spend any time together. Annabeth decides to cut to the chase, stop her mother jumping to conclusions in her head.

“I don’t regret anything I said the other day,” she tells her and her mother’s chin lifts just a little. “I needed to say it and I needed you to hear it. That being said… I don’t want to leave things that way?”

“You don’t?” Hope visibly flares in her expression.

Annabeth pulls her phone out. “I’d like to have your number, if that’s okay with you?”

Her mom blinks at her.

“This isn’t a forgiveness, I need you to understand that,” Annabeth says, feeling a dozen emotions swirl around inside her chest and belly. “It’s an offering. I’d like for us to be in each other’s lives again, in some capacity.”

“Annabeth, I… I would love that.”

She feels herself smiling. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

They part ways with a hesitant and definitely awkward hug but Annabeth feels lighter as she gets into the car with a new number stored in her phone under: Mom.

It feels something like hope.

* * *

 

**Six months**

Friday nights have fast become Percy’s favourite time of the week.

He had always made an effort to have dinner at his mom’s once a week, but now this has somehow developed into he and Annabeth going round for Friday night dinner every week when they’re both in town. He can’t say he hates it.

Despite her initial fears, Annabeth has all but adopted his family as her own, falling in with their terrible humour and dangerously competitive board games with ease. He supposes it’s not that strange at all: that the people he loves end up loving each other too. Still, he can’t help but feel smug as he watches Annabeth laughingly yell at his sister for being such a damn good liar in their third round of ‘Werewolves’ that evening. He catches his mom’s eye and she’s grinning too; and later, as he and Paul are loading up the dishwasher, his step-dad tells him how much he likes Annabeth and Percy can’t help but agree with a lip-bitten smile: “Yeah, I’m pretty fond of her.”

It’s later still, when they’re walking up the stairs to their apartment, that Percy regrets ever introducing Annabeth to his family.

“So your mom was showing me some old stuff from the loft while you and Paul were washing up.”

Percy, having unlocked the door, pauses before he opens the door for her. “I’m not gonna enjoy this conversation, am I?”

Annabeth’s face is far too smug as she passes him into the apartment. “Yeah, there was a bunch of stuff from your old bedroom. Some posters you had on your bedroom walls…”

Halfway through taking his jacket off, Percy freezes. “Ah shit.”

“Be honest, you used to fantasise about me,” she says, pulling off her own coat. Percy watches as she leans against the back of the couch and toes off her shoes. “Did you kiss that poster of me every night before you went to sleep?”

He sighs, removing his jacket the rest of the way and tossing it at a coat hook. “I knew leaving you two alone together was a bad idea.”

Her grin is jackal. She bites into her bottom lip as she leans back against the couch. “If sixteen year old Percy could see you right now, he’d combust.”

Shaking his head, Percy closes the distance between them and grabs her hips, tugging her towards him. “Well, could you blame him? You’re a hot piece of ass, Chase.”

“Not to mention the sparkling personality.”

He tilts his head, grazing over her lips with his. “Oh sure.”

Her hands find his ass. “And the championship trophies.”

“Mhm, those too.”

“And-”

But he’s kissing her now and her laugh is swallowed as he licks into her mouth. It bubbles up again as they topple over onto the couch, him landing ungracefully with his head near her armpit.

“Oh Percy Jackson, you sex god.”

He laughs too, as he crawls over her, planting his elbows safely on either side of her. She starts unbuttoning his shirt and tilts her chin up, asking for kisses. He waits for a moment though and just looks down at her. Because really, sixteen year old Percy wouldn’t believe he’d get a chance at this. Twenty six year old percy wouldn’t believe it.

But here he is, living it. Living every single day with the love of his life. It’s a privilege he hadn’t known before and one he’s certain he never wants to go without again.

Truth is, there’s an engagement ring rolled up in a pair of his socks in their bedroom which he knows he’s going to get on one knee with and give to her some day. Not today nor tomorrow, nor any time particularly soon. Because despite the fact that they’re living together, they’re still working out the creases; six months isn’t actually that long and Percy wants to make sure they’re both ready. But the fact is that he knows he will be giving that ring to Annabeth, and it’s going to be the happiest goddamn day of his life.

“Whatcha doin up there?” Annabeth asks him, tapping a finger to his temple. Percy leans into the touch and smiles.

“Lookin at you.”

“I see that. You gonna kiss me any time soon?” There’s a beautiful teasing tilt to her mouth that warms Percy down to his toes.

“Absolutely.”

And gosh, does he.

* * *

Later, when they’ve brushed their teeth and left their clothes abandoned on the living room floor like the responsible adults they are, Annabeth walks into the bedroom wearing his shirt and carrying a pint of ice cream.

Percy smiles as she clambers onto the bed, draping her legs over his lap and offering a spoonful of honeycomb ice cream. He drops his arm over her legs and brushes his hand from her ankle to her knee and then back again.

“Okay, seriously,” she tells him around the spoon. “You used to fantasise about me. We need to talk about this.”

Percy rolls his eyes through a smile. “The same as we need to talk about how you used to stalk me?”

Annabeth pulls an indignant face. “I watched _one_ of your games.”

He dips his finger into the tub of ice cream. “That you’ve admitted to. If I find your childhood belongings, would it include a Percy shrine?”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t try and divert from the topic. Did you kiss the poster every night before bed?”

“Oh absolutely. But you should know know that I also kissed my poster of Federer.”

Annabeth flicks his ear.

“I’m serious,” he tells her. “The guy’s a dreamboat.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Percy laughs and plucks the ice cream tub from her hands, placing it on his bedside table where it’s sure to melt in minutes. “But now I get to kiss the real thing every night,” he says, rolling them both over.

Annabeth gasps. “You’ve been cheating on me with Roger this whole time?”

Percy doesn’t even spare her an eye roll as he starts kissing her neck.

“Well,” she says, threading her sticky fingers into his hair, “I suppose he is very charming. If you’re having an affair, I’d rather it was with him.”

Percy bites down on her collarbone and she yanks on his hair. He lifts his head to grin at her.

“Annabeth.” He kisses her pout. “You’re the only one for me.”

She melts a bit underneath him, he can feel her growing softer as he kisses the corners of her mouth, her cheeks, her nose, her lips.

“Mm,” she sighs, leaning up into him. “You’re the only one for me too.”

And well, perhaps Percy won’t keep that ring hidden for quite so long after all.

* * *

It’s only a few days later when Percy stops by his mom’s again. She wants him to pick up some of his old bedroom things because she’s running out of space and, well, he has enough of it now.

She greets him at the door on the phone. Smiling, she tilts her head for him to kiss her cheek and points him towards her study. On his way through, he grabs a cookie from the open jar and grins as she bats him away.

His mom’s study is crammed full of books and trinkets and photos and he has absolutely no idea how she gets any work done in here. Although a lack of ADHD has to help. He lingers on a few of the photos and feels his heart flop over in his chest when he sees a newly framed one of the five of them - Annabeth included - on her desk.

There’s a box sitting snugly in her chair with his own name written in black ink across the side so he figures that’s what he’s here for. He knows he’s supposed to just take the whole thing, but his mom will want him to stay for at least one cup of coffee after she gets off the phone, so he figures he has a bit of time to kill.

The lids of the box are propped open by a rolled up poster and Percy wonders… yes, this must be the object of his humiliation last Friday. Sighing, he tugs it out of the box and eases off the elastic band holding it into its rolled up shape. He opens it up, grinning as his girlfriend at age sixteen is revealed in a white skirt and top, fierceness fixed in her expression as she’s captured mid-serve. The length of her body is stretched, lifted above the surface by an inch or two and allowing a strip of her belly to be revealed. Sixteen year old Percy had been a kid with simple needs.

Hell, he still is now.

He’s so busy gaping at the photo that it takes him another minute to realise that there’s something scrawled in the bottom right corner. Frowning, he holds it closer to his face and tilts his head to decipher the writing.

_Dear Percy,_

_thank you for your support, it means more than you could know_

_Love, your idol, Annabeth Chase._

* * *

 

**Six years**

“Oh, that was definitely wide!” Percy shouts from the side of court.

Annabeth points her racquet at him. “I won’t take this slander, Jackson.”

He grins at her. “Just speaking the truth, Jackson.”

She grins at him and looks back to her opponent. “Your serve, sweetie.”

With Piper helping him, Theo nods in a determined way and grips the sized down racquet in one hand as he bounces the ball in front of him. At only three years old he manages to get the ball over the net successfully - a prodigy in the making, you could say.

Percy and Grover watch from the sidelines of the old court, leaning up against the chain link fence. In his arms, Percy cradles his daughter, bouncing her a little as she droops in and out of sleep. It’s the end of summer in New York and Annabeth won the US Open just a few days ago. He’s so incredibly, blissfully happy, he’s not quite sure this is real. But then Amelia manages to wipe an unidentified fluid onto his cheek and he’s reminded of the normalcy all over again.

“Here, man.” Grover takes Amelia out of his arms so he can find a wet wipe somewhere. He always has wet wipes and tissues somewhere on his person now; the perils of being a father of two.

“Daaaad!!” Theo whines then. “Help me!”

He checks Grover is alright with Amelia before taking Piper’s place.

“Apparently I’m just not good enough,” Piper says with a smirk.

Percy laughs and tackles Theo into a hug as he picks him up. “Alright, buddy. Let’s take her down.”

Annabeth is grinning at them on the other side of the court and Percy can’t help but smile back just as widely as he helps Theo grip the small handle of his racquet.

As he watches Annabeth serve the ball, he can’t help but feel a swell of pride in his chest. The freshly engraved US Open trophy sits in the cabinet along with their other achievements in their lounge. On the wall next to it hangs the framed poster of Annabeth which she signed for Percy. And in the kitchen, pinned on the fridge with an I heart Paris magnet, is the card Annabeth had presented to him in bed two weeks ago. _Good morning,_ it reads _. Congratulations, you’re gonna be a dad…again._ Because yes, his wife just won a grand slam whilst pregnant, because that’s the kind of woman she is.

She’s always kept him on his toes, especially during those first months of their almost relationship. She was a firecracker, a whirlwind of energy and excitement and he’d been caught up in her tornado. And slowly, slowly, he’d been able to see the calmer, quieter parts to her. And as they’ve lived their lives together over the years, he’s learnt about the several complex sides of her and has fallen more and more deeply in love with every part of her. She’s the flame of a hearth and the spark of a firework. She’s life and love and joy. She’s a deep sadness that will take more years to recover from. She’s bravery and fear and vulnerability. She’s the love of his life.

“Your head’s in the clouds, Jackson!” Annabeth shouts, laughing at him.

The ball has sailed past them and hit the metal railings. Percy exchanges a look with Theo and shrugs. “Sorry, buddy.”

“It’s okay, dad,” he says, very seriously and pats his hand.

Annabeth abandons the game and jumps over the net to their side of the court. Theo reaches for her as soon as she’s close enough and laughs as she blows raspberries against his cheeks. Annabeth sets him down after a moment and looks up at Percy, smiling. Theo hugs her leg and sways back and forth as he stares up at them both.

“Should we go have lunch?” Annabeth asks in an animated fashion.

“Yes. Yes. Yes,” Theo recites and runs over to where Piper and Grover are standing.

Percy scoops up the abandoned ball and puts his arm around Annabeth’s shoulders, pressing a kiss into her hair. They walk back to the others and collect their belongings, Annabeth takes Amelia from Grover and Percy shoulders the bag with the racquets in it and they all amble out of the courts in search of a place to have their picnic.

It’s not a rare occurrence for Grover and Piper to accompany them on their days out. Often they’re joined by Grover’s wife and kids or Percy’s family or every once in a blue moon, Annabeth’s mom. The latter are steadily becoming easier, but are still the least dynamic group to be among. In any circumstance, Theo is so charming that any adult falls in love with him in seconds and dilutes any hint of awkwardness that might present itself. Percy’s mom told him he was the same way as a kid.

“Shame that wore off,” Annabeth had teased, smirking.

They find a shaded area in the park and spread out their lunch, laying Amelia down in a swaddle of sweaters so she can sleep. She’d been up most of the night; currently teething and restless most evenings. Percy and Annabeth had taken it in turns getting up to soothe her so as to spread the exhaustion out. They worked well that way; sharing responsibility and duties. Their parenting arrangements had come about through late nights and long afternoons talking through their fears and ambitions and hopes for their family.

And if there’s one thing Percy is unfathomably grateful for, it’s how certain and comfortable he feels in their relationship to be able to bring up such topics and know that there is no such thing as an unanswerable question. When they’d had Theo for example, Annabeth had taken a couple of months to recover and nurse him while Percy had continued competing, then he’d taken a break to look after Theo while Annabeth got back to fitness and competing; they’d gone through the same process for Amelia and will likely do the same with their third baby. Being a stay at home dad has never felt like a burden to Percy, he loves being a dad more than anything, except possibly being a husband. It’s a pretty even tie.

The point is, at the beginning, he and Annabeth had spent so long dancing around the important questions for fear of losing what they did have. Then after they’d gotten together properly, they slipped into somewhat of a limbo which he’d been worried about spoiling. It had been Annabeth who asked about them moving in together after four months - a full year after they’d first met - and things had been gathered into perspective. After that, he’d found it much easier to open up more about his worries and ask the big questions for the future.

They’d always taken things one day at a time when things had gotten hard or complicated, determined to stay in the moment and not let themselves get overwhelmed by the things that had prevented Annabeth wanting a relationship in the first place. But days turned into weeks and months and years, and the big questions stopped being so scary. They stopped being questions at all, really. When Percy finally got that engagement ring out of his sock drawer, he’d told her: “I want to be your husband more than anything, please let me be.”

They’d talked about their big plans for the future in the dead of night with nothing on under the sheets, on the couch wearing pyjamas and fuzzy socks and eating cereal, waiting in airports for flights to take them to their next tournament. They’d asked, and talked, and answered.

They still do. And they always will.

* * *

When Annabeth tries to think back to how afraid she used to be, that person feels light years away from who she is now.

She’d spent so much of her life terrified of everything, of commitment and her own vulnerability and giving parts of herself away just for them to be broken. There was a time when waking up with Percy’s fully clothed body wrapped around her scared the hell out of her. Now it’s wonderfully imprinted as a permanent part of her life.

She can’t imagine not having it, not having him. This morning, she had been woken by her three year old son climbing between she and Percy and pressing his suspiciously sticky hands to her face. They had all lay in bed until Amelia had woken and then they’d gone into the kitchen to eat breakfast together. Beautifully and wonderfully domestic. A scene she’s sure Annabeth from seven years ago would have bolted at. But Annabeth now cherishes it with everything she has.

“Mom wants to take a trip to Montauk next weekend,” Percy tells her over the top of Theo’s head.

It’s hours later from lunch in the park and Percy is carrying a sleeping Theo up the stairs to their apartment. Amelia is stirring in her own arms as she grapples for her keys. She’s become exponentially more dextrous since having children.

“Oh?” she says as she opens the door.

“Yeah, I know it’s a little last minute but she just found out the cabin’s free and it’s one of the last nice weekends we’re gonna get.”

“No that sounds nice. I’ve got a meeting Friday morning but we could head down after that and come back Monday morning?”

“Perfect, I’ll text mom.”

They make their quiet way through the apartment towards the kids rooms and separately put them  both down for the night.

By the time she’s finished with Amelia, Percy is already in the kitchen unpacking their bags and filling the dishwasher. She brushes her hand over his back as she passes him to put the kettle on and he hums quietly. They move around each other seamlessly, like they have been doing for years now, and end up on the couch with her feet in his lap and two cups of decaf coffee cradled in their hands.

“I can’t believe we’ve finally got this parenting thing down and now it’s gonna be messed up by another one.” Annabeth’s smiling as she says this.

Percy pinches her little toe through her sock. “Maybe we should stop after this one.”

She laughs. “Maybe we should. Do you recon your mom will move in with us again?”

“Oh my god are you kidding? I think she’d live here full time if we let her.”

Annabeth rubs her feet together in his lap. “I’m glad we have her.”

“Mm, me too.” He shackles her ankle in his hand. “I’m glad I have you.”

Annabeth tilts her head lazily against the arm of the couch. “You’re so nice.”

“I am. So fucking nice. So fucking lucky too.”

She smiles at him, sated and happy. “We did pretty well, huh?”

Percy raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t think we’d get this, when we started.”

“Oh god, me neither. Do you remember those rules we made?”

He barks out a laugh, throwing his head back and exposing his throat. Annabeth watches, grinning. “Fucking hell, the rules. What were they? No sharing the bed clothed?”

“Yeah, we broke that one. No PDA, was one of them?”

“Obviously,” he scoffs. “That one I think we actually kept.”

“That and no meeting up between tournaments.”

“Well, apart from that one time in LA.”

“Oh shit, I’d forgotten about that.”

“How could you forget about LA? We had sex in a lifeguard tower.”

Annabeth laughs. “We did! Damn that was good sex. We should have sex in public places more often.”

He tilts his head at her. “Oh yeah, that’ll be easy with two kids.”

She smirks. “We managed it at the tournament.”

Annabeth feels enormously satisfied as she watches the blush sweep over Percy’s cheeks. “Because you’re a fucking menace.”

“And sex at home is difficult with two kids.”

“Also true.”

She grins at him. “What else did we agree on?”

Percy purses his lips in thought. “No attending each other’s games? But you broke that the next morning.”

“What? How do you know that?”

“Piper.”

She sighs. “Fucking Piper.”

Percy grins and rubs his hand over her shins. “Honesty about feelings and shit,” he says. “That was the other one.”

“Well,” she says quietly, “we definitely failed that one, didn’t we?”

His smile softens and Annabeth puts down her mug to crawl over to his side, falling over his lap with her back to the other arm of the couch. She takes his mug from him and puts that down too. Then she frames his face with her hands and kisses him.

“Would you do it differently?” she asks him, when they’ve pulled away and left their foreheads resting together. “If we could do it all over.”

Percy rubs his nose against hers and looks into her eyes. “I don’t think I could. I think our story happened the way it needed to.”

“Even though we both got hurt?”

He shrugs. “Even though we both got hurt. Because look at what we have now, where we are. I can’t imagine doing anything differently.”

And well, Annabeth had imagined dealing with things in a thousand different ways so that she hadn’t hurt Percy the way she had. It’s not something she beats herself up over any more - she’s gained far too much perspective, healed far too much, to still feel that guilt. But really, she’s not sure she would have been able to do it differently anyway. They both taught each other so much, both grew as they fell in love with each other. Maybe Percy is right: maybe their story happened the way it needed to for them to end up here. And Annabeth wouldn’t change what they have now for the world.

“I’m glad it’s our story,” she tells him.

He smiles, all soft. “Me too. Wouldn’t change it for anything.”

Annabeth leans in to kiss him, and she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but right here.

 

_Game, Set, Match._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm SO SAD this is over but i'm also so proud of this fic. i just wanted to say thank you to sophii once again for bringing this AU into my life, it was the most fun to play around in and i'm going to miss it so so much. fortunately though, we have several more AUs in progress and lined up, so we won't be bored.
> 
> thank you guys for being so supportive of us and and patient with me!! every kudos and every comment means the forking world, i can't tell you. soph and i appreciate you all so much <3 come and hit us up on our tumblrs any time: [sophii](https://blackjacktheboss.tumblr.com) [hannah](https://ananbeth.tumblr.com)
> 
> for anyone interested, the quote about loneliness is from Chris Hadfield's autobiography - An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth:  
> “I wasn't lonely. Loneliness, I think, has very little to do with location. It's a state of mind. In the centre of every city are some of the loneliest people in the world. If anything, because our whole planet was just outside the window, I felt even more aware of and connected to the seven billion other people who call it home.”


End file.
